


learn and learn again

by bullroars



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Attempted Murder, Ballroom Dancing, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Class Issues, Demisexuality, Dreams and Nightmares, Dubious Morality, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mild Gore, Mild Kink, Mild Language, Murder Husbands, Murder Mystery, Nightmares, References to Jane Austen, Serial Killers, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:38:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bullroars/pseuds/bullroars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I find," said Hannibal, "that you are a most strange and wonderful creature, Mister Graham, for all you hide behind your manners and your reputation."  </p><p>"And you," Will retorted, "are the most persistent man I have ever met. Tell me, Doctor Lecter, what do you see when you look at me?  Something broken to fix?  Some creature to tame?  Some street rat from the coast, trying to pretend he belongs in high society?"</p><p>"Tame you?"  Hannibal seemed oblivious to Will's last question, affection and pride and desire playing out behind his eyes.  "Never."</p><p>(or,  regency au.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. east sussex, 14 october, 1816

**Author's Note:**

> Idk I saw _Belle_ at the beginning of the summer and I've been on a regency kick ever since, I've read every Jane Austen novel and the Bronte novels and detective fiction and I've watched every movie and show I could think of and it's just. So bad. Such regency. 
> 
> So, why not regency!Hannibal? I don't know how murder husbands this is gonna get, to be honest, so we'll see. In the meantime enjoy awkward angry poor recluse Will and fabulously wealthy douchebag Hannibal. With some murder mystery thrown in on the side. 
> 
> I've done a fair bit of research for this. The naval battles Will participated in all took place in the Napoleonic Wars. Hannibal's timeline is historically accurate. Will holds the naval rank of Commander, which is below Captain but above Lieutenant Commander. Both the Thames (or River) Police and the Bow Street Runners existed as established police forces. (They were the precursors to the Metropolitan, or Scotland Yard, Police.) East Sussex, the South Downs, Kent, the Weald, and Beachy Head are all real places, though the various towns and estates that the characters live in are not. 
> 
> In this time period psychiatry had yet to be invented, so Hannibal's an odd duck who does unconventional things. Everyone who lives in or near the town of Little Baltimore is considered unusual. There are queer couples and no one is really concerned about it. Period accurate? No, but I'm tired of reading about sad queer romances facing oppression from all sides. Contains classism, nightmares, and Will's general refusal to be treated like he's less than Mister Well-to-Do who moved in up the road. 
> 
> Enjoy!

learn and learn again

 

Life in the Downs had a very predictable, very usual, very normal air about it, and for that Mister Will Graham could forgive it its lack of wind and waves.  He still missed a deck under his feet, and the ocean spray upon his face, but the Downs were quiet and peaceful and, most importantly, out of the way, so he was content.

The summers were warm, the autumn beautiful, and the winters bearable. There was always work to be done, running a house on his own.  Wolf Trap was by no means a large estate—only a small house, barely a manor, a barn that leaned in hard wind, and a few dozen acres of wild, unkempt field and wood—but it was more than enough to keep one man busy.

Will Graham patched the holes in the roof and cleared away the slowly rotting floors.  He cleaned the chimney and tried to stop the barn from leaning.  He painted all of his rooms afresh, darned the holes in his socks, kept the dogs in good order, and attempted to tame the grounds. 

From dawn to dusk he worked, with barely a moment to stop and cook himself a meal or have a cup of tea, and life was predictable and very nearly pleasant.  He nightmared often but almost never in the daylight.  He missed the sea only in his dreams.

For almost two years he labored in Wolf Trap, taming his grounds, running with his dogs, and getting his home in order.  His life was punctuated at regular intervals by visits from his neighbors. On Tuesdays Missus Alana Bloom, whose husband like Will had served in the navy, and unlike Will had not made it home from the waters of Spain, came for tea and a walk on the grounds.  On Thursdays Miss Beverly Katz, a budding novelist who frequently tried to make off with Will’s dogs, came for dinner and badgered Will incessantly for the details of his life and his work.   

At less regular, but still somewhat predictable intervals, Will’s other neighbor and former commanding officer would drop by and try to entice Will into joining him on a little trip up to London, to solve some murder or other.  Each time Will would firmly (but politely, he hoped, though he had no delusions about the sorry state of his manners) decline, and Sir Jack Crawford would go on his way. 

It was a good, quiet,  _predictable_ life.  Until Miss Beverly Katz, hair flying and skirts pulled up over her ankles, came racing down Will’s quiet road shouting, “Someone’s taken up Black Stag Manor!  Someone is in the Manor again!”

Will, who had been wrestling in vain with a particularly stubborn shrub, straightened up.  “What?”  (Miss Beverly, who insisted that she be called “Bev,” did not mind Will’s manners.  She was American, and a little odd besides.) 

Bev stopped to fuss over the dogs, who nosed about her skirts hopefully, and to catch her breath. 

“You didn’t run all the way here from Almondtree,” Will said disbelievingly. 

“It’s only a half-mile,” said Bev, with a tiny grin.  “I ran farther and faster in New York, chased from you redcoats.” 

Will shook his head slowly.  “You shouldn’t come out here alone.  Order a carriage next time, I’m sure your news will keep.”

Bev had the gall to look offended.  “What, and let someone else tell you the news?”

Will looked pointedly around his tiny estate, tall trees on one side and rolling hills on the other.  Bev was his closest neighbor at a half-mile to the west.  Missus Bloom was a mile and a half north, and the village three miles south.  “Who else would tell me?  Winston?”  The mottled dog, thus named, waged his tail against Bev’s legs. 

She laughed.  “I hear he’s quiet the gossip, your Winston.  Utterly shameless, he is.”

“An incurable flaw, I’m afraid.  Poor breeding, bad manners, you know.” Will could not help but grin at her in return—Bev had a wonderful, sharp-toothed wit, and not even a recluse like Will Graham was immune to its charms.  After a brief moment, however, he forced himself to sober.  “I am being serious, Miss Katz.  These hills are not safe for a young woman traveling alone.”

Bev cut him a sharp glance.  “The Shrike hasn’t come farther west than Quantico,” she said.  “They say he’s afraid of Sir Jack.”

Will tucked his hands inside his coat pockets.  Winter had not fully come to the Downs, not yet, but it would within a month or so and these sort of discussions always left Will feeling cold and submerged.  “As he should be.”  Sir Jack was a formidable man, sharp and utterly fearless.  “But he is getting bolder, Bev, and there are many places to hide between here and Quantico.”

Bev waved her hand but, seeing the stubborn set of Will’s jaw, relented.  “Very well.  Next time I’ll have Jimmy call a carriage.  Are you satisfied, Commander?”

Will bristled at her use of his title—he very rarely told anyone, these days—but let go of his anger.  “Yes,” said he.  He tried to smile again, softly.  “I would be very much put out if you were to disappear one night, Miss Katz.  What would I do without you keeping me informed of the outside world?”

“Oh, carry on as you were, I’d imagine,” she said, but there was laughter in her voice again. “Napoleon and his armies could march right through the Downs and you wouldn't notice, so long as they left Wolf Trap alone.”

Will would have argued, but she was probably right.  “Come,” he said.  “Let’s get out of the chill and you can tell me your news.”

Two years ago he would have been ashamed to let a lady, even one as accommodating and kind as Beverly, into his home.  Wolf Trap had been greatly in disrepair when he bought it, but months of hard work and patience had made his drawing room respectable enough, and Bev settled into her favorite armchair with a contented sigh.

She let Will make the tea.  She would scarcely let him cook—he was dismal at it, apparently, added salt to everything like a sailor—but she said his tea was delightful, and happily accepted the steaming cup he placed in front of her.

Will sat opposite her in his own favorite chair and the dogs arrayed themselves between them.  Will let a few moments pass for Bev to enjoy her tea—his manners were, he hoped, improving—and then asked, “So, what news from the world outside?”

Bev grinned.  “Someone has bought up Black Stag Manor at last,” she said, excitement gleaming in her eyes.  “Brian was in town today picking up some things for the house, and he heard it from Matthew Brown, who works for that Chilton fellow, down in the village?  Anyway, Brown told Brian that some doctor from London bought the old place, and planned to move in at once!”

Will blinked.  He knew very little of the surrounding country folk and their homes.  He knew his estate, Bev’s Almondtree, Quantico Manor where the Crawfords made their home, the village of Little Baltimore, and then just the rolling, endless hills of the Downs, all around him like sea around a ship.  “Have I heard of Black Stag Manor?”  he asked.

His guest gave a put-upon sigh.  “Yes,” she said.  “It’s the house the village says is haunted, remember? It’s only five miles from here, up in the hills.”

“Oh.”  Will did remember, vaguely.  Bev had told him of it in hushed tones, late one Thursday evening when the driving rain had kept her in Wolf Trap longer than expected.  “That’s where all of those bones were found, wasn’t it?”

Dozens of chewed-up, ancient, yellowed bones, some cracked clean down the middle for their marrow.  Will remembered that case from back when he was a policeman—the Runners hadn’t come down, letting the local constabulary handle it, but some newspaperman had found out about the bones and plastered the headlines all over London.

_Dozens of bodies pulled from the ground in East Sussex!  Gnawed-on bones removed from abandoned estate!  Do murderers stalk the Downs?_

It had caused quite a stir, but the old bones were blamed on the wild tribes that had inhabited Britain before Roman rule, called the remnants of some ancient battle or some harsh winter, and largely forgotten.

Bev nodded enthusiastically.  “No one has lived there in twenty years,” she said.  “The last occupant was an old widow whose husband died in the American wars.  She sold the property to the state and moved to Brighton, apparently.”

“What kind of doctor wants to live in a haunted house?”

Bev’s grin was downright frightening.  “An interesting one, I hope.  We could use some excitement around here.”

“I hope he doesn’t plan on starting up a practice.”  Alana Bloom was not a doctor, not really—no school had accepted her, despite her obvious intelligence and determination—but she had taught herself everything she could about herbs and medicines and various ills of the body, and had become something of a doctor for the village and surrounding estates.  Her husband had left her with a tidy sum, but Will knew she depended on her earnings as a healer to keep her home in good order. 

Bev shrugged.  “Brown didn’t say.  You should come with me when I call on him.”

Will blinked again.  “Why would I do that?”

His lapse in manners earned him a sharp swat.  “Be neighborly,” she said.  “He is from London, as you are.  Perhaps a friendly face will make his move more bearable, no?”

Her host barked a laugh.  “You want to explore Black Stag, don’t you.”

To her credit, she smiled unrepentantly.  “I do,” she allowed.  “It has the makings of an excellent story, don’t you think?  Bones and murder, an old, unkempt house, strange sounds in the woods at night…”

Will shook his head, laughing quietly.  “You’ve made your point.  I’m not really from town, though.  I spent more time at sea than I did in the city.”

“You’ve been there as recently as two years,” said Bev, undeterred.  “That's close enough for conversation, I think.”

Will must have given her a pained look, because she swatted him again.  “Come on, it’s not like I’m asking you to marry the man.  You just have to hold a conversation with him for a few minutes, make polite, and then we will surely be invited back to dine with the good doctor.”

Recognizing defeat, Will put his hands up and sighed.  “What if I don’t find him that interesting?”

Battle won, Bev just waved him aside, lifting her tea to her lips with a smile.  “Don’t worry,” she said.  “I’m sure you will.”

* * *

 

Bev had the good manners to wait a fortnight.  The doctor moved in on a brilliant October Wednesday, Will was told, bringing a train of carriages and coaches half a mile long down from town.

(When Will expressed his skepticism over such a large retinue—surely even the Prince Regent did not have so many  _things_ —Bev shushed him impatiently and continued to wax rapture over the horses, the manservants, and the trappings of this multitude of carriages.)

The whole countryside was abuzz.  Never in Will’s time in the Downs had he seen so many  _people_ about, even in secluded little Wolf Trap.  He had boys tramping through his fields, young girls swooning and sighing on his road, and harried parents rushing to and fro, buying things in town, rushing them home, everyone doing their best to impress East Sussex’s newest resident. 

Will, in a fit of pique, let his hedges grow over and weeds spring up in his lawn.  The last thing he needed was this doctor, whoever he was, riding by in the lane and thinking Wolf Trap was  _quaint,_ or some such adjective, and bring a horde of people in to disturb its fragile peace.

Beverly, being the creature she was, had the gall to laugh at Will, and demand he shave and find a decent suit to call on Doctor Lecter on the first Friday in November.

There was no use fighting with her, especially when Alana heard of Bev’s plan and agreed wholeheartedly.

“I was just a little girl when they found the bones at Black Stag,” she exclaimed, hands pressed together in delight.  (Will was powerless in the face of her delight.)  “Oh, Will, we have to go.  I’ve heard of this Doctor Lecter—he’s  _fascinating._ He works with the Thames Police on cases.”

“I thought he was a doctor,” Will said, already dreading his meeting with this man.  The Thames Police and the Row Street Runners were on good enough terms—had to be, in a city like London that sometimes seemed to teem with criminals—and Will’s departure from the Runners had been unfortunately rather well-publicized. He had no desire to have to relive that shame should the doctor bring it up or recognize his name. 

“Oh, he is,” said Alana.  “A very unconventional one, by all accounts.”  And she would say no more, other than, “I think I have a suit that might fit you, Will, I’ll bring it in on Thursday,” and like that he was condemned to spend an undoubtedly unpleasant day in an uncomfortable suit with Doctor Hannibal Lecter.

Will disliked the man’s very name.   _Hannibal._ A gentleman then, born and raised in the upper echelon of society, a silver spoon in his mouth from birth.  Common folk did not know Carthaginian heroes—common folk had names like John and Henry, Samuel and William. 

Will knew he didn’t belong here, in an estate in the Downs, surrounded by people of means.  Alana and Bev were not fabulously wealthy, not as this Lecter was sure to be, but they were well off enough to have manservants and maids, people to call their carriages for them and brush their horses and trim their moody hedges. 

This Lecter was going to give Will, in his ill-fitting, borrowed suit, rope callouses on his fingers, stiff arm held to his side, one long, disapproving look, and not give him another glance.

Will liked being left alone, but he did not liked being outright ignored.

So when the first Friday in November, an unreasonably bright, almost warm day, came around and he climbed into Alana’s suit and into Bev’s carriage, he had a scowl on his face and tension in his shoulders that would not leave, no matter how Bev tried to coax him.

“We’ll have to do all the talking,” Bev said to Alana, exasperated.  “He’s useless when he gets this way.”

Alana smiled at Will, brushed his knee gently.  “He’ll be fine.  He’s just nervous, right, Will?”

Will softened for Alana.  “Right,” he agreed, trying to smile weakly.  He was a knot of resentment and nerves, palms white and fingers clenching.  He  _hated_ lordlings and their ilk.  It was bad breeding, he knew, and bad manners to judge and condemn a man he had never met before, had heard only whispers of, but Will’s dislike was deep-seated and implacable.  It had been drummed into him since he was a small boy.  There was simply nothing he could do about it. 

Resigned then to hating Doctor Lecter and every moment spent in his presence, Will stared resolutely out the carriage window for the remainder of their journey, watching the hills roll by and give way to woodland. 

The lane grew narrow and dark, thick branches reaching and tangling together to block out the sun.  Not all of the leaves had fallen—some still clung to their trees, bright bursts of fiery red and gold heralding the way to Black Stag Manor.

“We’re here,” whispered Bev, excitement flushing her face.  Her mind was whirling already, Will knew, turning quiet lanes into black dens of murder and blood, putting monsters in the trees and fearless detectives and brave housemaids chasing killers through the night. 

Alana touched Will’s elbow, gently, and smiled at him.  He got out of the carriage automatically, held out his hand for the ladies to come down, and let them lead the way.

Black Stag was, if possible, in even worse shape than Wolf Trap had been.  Twenty years of neglect left ivy clinging to the walls like cobwebs.  Paint peeled along all of the windows—most still draped in heavy dark velvet—and though the house was made of brick and stone, wooden trimmings rotted along the roof and the ground.  The whole yard smelled faintly of decay, and all of the hairs on the back of Will’s neck stood up in warning.

Fear—though he would not ever admit that it was fear—filled his mouth with the taste of copper and hot iron.  He felt like he was standing in the shadow of death.

A smartly-dressed butler waited for them at the door, a polite smile fixed on his face.  “Gentleman, my ladies,” he said graciously, ushering them inside. 

The interior of the manor was in better shape, though still slack and musty with disuse.  The floors had been recently polished, marble gleaming, and a row of paintings and portraits in fine filigree frames lined the walls, which smelled faintly of fresh paint. 

“I will inform Doctor Lecter that you have arrived.”  The butler took them to a neat, spacious drawing room, past other rooms still draped in dust and white cloth.  “He will be with you in just a moment.  He is attending to some business with his Lordship the Earl.”

“Lord Hobbs is here?”  Bev hissed, once the butler had left them. 

“He cannot be,” Alana said quietly, and she sounded very sure.  “His Lordship has been in Kent and in town for months now.  He cannot have come back to East Sussex so quickly.”

Will, if possible, grew even paler.  He could handle meeting a wealthy doctor.  Lecter had no titles to his name, no claim to power besides his wealth.  Will could handle that, he thought.  But lords, even knights, had a tendency to look at Will like something horrifying that crawled out of the London gutters, and the last thing he needed was a relapse into madness. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow flit across the doorway.

_Pull yourself together, William,_ he told himself.  _You spent two years in here, piecing your life back together.  Do not ruin it now.  There won't be any nice little cottages to run to and no Sir Jacks to speak for you, not this time._

“Good afternoon,” said a warm, measured voice, colored with an accent Will did not know.  A tall, broad-shouldered man strode into the drawing room and bowed. 

Alana and Bev rose and curtsied, introducing themselves with perfect politeness.  It took Will a long moment to realize that he should also stand, and he did so hastily, bowing to hide his flush.

_Not even a minute into meeting the man,_ he thought despairingly, ready to resign himself to an afternoon of pointed silences and cold shoulders, and a night of bloodlust and nightmares. 

“This is Commander William Graham,” Alana said, curtsying again.  “He is a neighbor also.”

“A commander?”  Their host turned his attention—and his eyes, sharp, piercing, and an unusual shade of brown, almost red—to Will.  He inclined his head.  “I did not know I was to be in the presence of a naval hero today.  Commander, it is a pleasure to meet you.  I am Doctor Hannibal Lecter.”

“The pleasure’s mine,” Will mumbled, not meeting Lecter’s eyes.  He could not.  He already knew what he would find there.  Disgust, contempt, pity, annoyance.  It was the same tune wherever Will went, the same emotions played out on different faces,  _you don’t belong here_ throbbing against Will’s perception like a hymn. 

Alana blessedly came to the rescue.  “We don’t get many new faces in these parts,” she said lightly.  “Especially not from town. How do you find our sleepy hamlet, Doctor Lecter?”

Lecter smiled.  He was a lean man, dark blond with sharp features and quick eyes.  He stood tall and straight, smartly dressed in clothes that looked like they cost as much as Will’s estate.  “Quite well,” said he, in his strange, lilting voice.  Will had been all over the world and he never heard an accent quite like that.  “It is a pleasant change, to breathe clean air and see such trees and fields again.”

“Have you lived long in London?”  Bev asked, shooting Will a glance. 

“Some twenty years now,” Lecter said mildly. “I moved there when I was a young man, and have tended a practice ever since.”

“Do you have plans of practicing here?”  Will watched Lecter carefully, eyes fixed on the bridge of his nose.  Lecter smiled. 

“Not at the moment, no.  Sir Jack has told me that Little Baltimore has a practicing physician already, and little need for a second.” 

Will relaxed fractionally.  At least Alana and her livelihood were safe.

“You know Sir Jack,” said Bev, surprise pushing her out of formalities. 

Lecter inclined his head again.   “I do.  In London I would occasionally consult with the police on certain matters.  I did most of my work with the Thames Police, but I have worked with Sir Jack before, many years ago.  It was he who actually recommended this manor to me.” 

“Black Stag has not had a master since I was a girl,” Alana remarked.  “It has a reputation, shall we say.”

Bev almost twitched.

“I have heard.”  Hannibal Lecter sounded almost amused.  “I am not worried about its ghosts.” 

“You don’t believe in ghosts, Doctor Lecter?”  Will surprised himself into speaking again.  He had yet to see Doctor Lecter’s face go from polite interest to cold disdain and it confused him.  He knew the suit fit him ill and he looked less like a noble Commander and more like a fisherman, and he could not understand why Lecter still extended such courtesy. 

He was not, he found, enraged by it.  Confused, a little annoyed that yet another piece of his very predictable, very normal life had come loose, but not enraged.  Nothing about Lecter felt like madness.  The shadow stayed at the door, and did not cross the threshold. 

“No,” said Lecter, “I do not.  I believe in what I can see and touch and taste.  I have yet to see a ghost.” A pause.  “Do you believe in ghosts, Commander?”

Will licked his lips.  Speaking had been a bad idea—he didn’t know what to say.  On the ships they called Will haunted, unlucky, cursed.  The dead must whisper to him because he knew things he should not know, could pluck secrets out of thin air.  In the police they had plain believed him possessed of some psychic powers, able to touch and see another plane.  Will just thought he was odd, but then he went mad and nothing had been the same since. 

“No,” he said at last.  “I believe I share your view, Doctor Lecter.  I don’t believe in what I can’t touch.”  Will had seen ghosts, heard them, become them, but he had not touched them.  He thought for a moment that Lecter could see through his lie, but the doctor turned to Alana and Bev again.

“If you see any ghosts,” he said, seemingly serious, “do let me know.  It would be unspeakably rude to walk through someone on my way to raid the kitchen at night.”

The ladies laughed, tension broken.  Will resolved not to speak unless spoken to for the rest of the day.  So far he seemed to have Lecter’s decent, if a little bemused, opinion.  As long as he did not incite Lecter to loathing him, Will could handle having a new neighbor.  The town would be in a flurry for a month or so, and then everyone would calm down again around Christmastime and Will’s life could return to its schedule.

“Come,” Lecter was saying, leading Alana and Bev away.  “Allow me to show you Black Stag.” 

Lecter and the women talked throughout the entire house, through drawing rooms and sitting rooms and an enormous dining room.  Most of the walls were barren still, though some were in the process of being decorated, rich tapestries and old paintings and bookcases filling up the space.

“My home in London was not so large,” Lecter said.  “I hardly know what to do with the space.  No manor in London has its own ballroom.”

“Perhaps you should throw a ball.”  Alana smiled at Lecter.  “The Crawfords would appreciate the change in venue, I believe.  Quantico is large, but not as large as this.  You could fit half the county in here if you desired.”

Lecter laughed.  “I shall think on it,” he promised.  “First I must make this place hospitable, and make sure there are no more bones lying about the grounds.”

Bev, finally seeing an opening to talk about her true interest in Black Stag, jumped into the conversation, Alana adding a line or two here and there, and Will was left to watch and observe.

The ladies, of course, were in their element.  Alana had been around Doctor Lecter’s kind her entire life and Bev was American—she could talk to whomever she pleased and not suffer their disdain. 

It wasn’t even the disdain that bothered Will, not really.  He was a sailor.  There was no room for disdain and petty resentment out on the sea, especially in wartime.  Disdain he could ignore.  No, it was the eyes that bothered Will Graham. 

He was not overfond of meeting people’s eyes on a daily basis, and even less so when he could read their disgust and their indifference for himself.  When Will looked into a man’s eyes, he  _saw_ them.  He was not a psychic, not that he knew of.  He could not read thoughts or divine futures.  He was no oracle or shaman healer. 

But sometimes he meet eyes and then he was standing in someone else’s body, looking at himself, and he could feel every bit of self-superiority and loathing and  _I am better than that ill-mannered_ thing,  _how dare he even look at me_  and—

“Commander,” said Lecter, and Will jerked out of his thoughts, blinking in confusion.  They were outside, it seemed, Beverly and Alana farther down the lawn, walking along the tree line.  Will glanced up at Lecter, saw the set of his mouth, half-worried, half-interested, and turned away. 

“Doctor,” he said.

“Please.”  The man waved a hand.  “You may call me Hannibal, Commander.  I am hardly a doctor here.”

“You must call me Will, then,” Will retorted.  “I have not been a commander in many years.”

“No?”

“I left the navy after Basque Roads,” he said tightly. 

“Ah, my apologies.”  They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.  “Forgive me, but you do not sound as though you are from East Sussex, not as Missus Bloom does.  Do you come from London also?”

“I’ve lived there,” Will said.  He didn't want to talk about this.  “A handful of years when I was a boy, a few more after I left the Navy.” 

“Where are you from, then?”

Will gave Lecter a sharp look.  Lecter smiled.  “I pride myself on my ability to place accents,” he said, by way of explanation.  “I find that I cannot place yours.” 

“I cannot place yours either,” Will said.  A challenge.  He did not give away information for free—Will had learned the hard way that knowledge gave people power over you, and he did not like feeling inferior or powerless. 

If Lecter realized what Will had done, he gave no indication.  “My country was called Lithuania,” he said.  “I left when I was a child.” 

Will can’t say he’s heard of Lithuania, but manners dictated that he return the favor.  “I am not from anywhere, really.  My father was in the navy also and we moved often.  I spent most of my youth on the coasts.” 

“That would explain why I cannot place your accent, then.”  Lecter’s voice was still light and pleasant, and he walked at a leisurely pace.  Will felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin. “Have you lived long in the Downs?”

“Two years.”

“And you have an estate.”

Will hesitated, but manners demanded he answer, and truthfully.  “Yes,” he said, fighting the urge to grit his teeth.   _I am an insect pinned to a dissecting board._ “Wolf Trap.  To the south a ways.” 

“I shall have to return the favor and call upon you.”  Lecter was not looking at Will but out towards the trees, and Will wanted to scream and run.  He did not want Lecter in his home, with his dogs, disrupting his life even further with his wealth and his well-made suits and his strange accent. 

_You are not welcome there,_ he wanted to shout, but he could not, he dared not.  He had learned as a boy that nothing was more dangerous than angering a wealthy man, and though his father was long dead Will would not let that wisdom die also. 

“Of course, if you find such an arrangement acceptable,” Lecter added, eyes still fixed ahead. 

Will took a breath. “I do,” he said.  “Though I fear my estate is not nearly as grand as yours.”

Lecter’s smile again was sly.  “I am sure it has its own charm,” said he.  “Tell me, what do you do for a living, Commander?”

_I don’t._ Will had no practice, no career.  He tended his dogs and his fields and his house and collected his allowance from the government.  “I raise hunting dogs,” he said, instead. 

“Oh, you hunt?”  Lecter sounded delighted.  “You must come and hunt with me when the season returns, it was one of the things I missed when I lived in town.”

Will’s lips thinned, but he nodded and said that he looked forward to it.  “And what of you, Doctor Lecter?  What will you be doing, down here in the south?”

“Hannibal,” Lecter corrected, eyes lidded, and thought for a moment.  “In town I had a hobby.  I suppose with Missus Bloom serving Little Baltimore’s medical needs, I could finally indulge in it.”

“Hobby?” 

Lecter smiled again. “Yes.  I cure nightmares.”

Will stopped walking.  “Cure nightmares?”  He barked a laugh.  “I am sorry, sir, but you cannot cure nightmares.  If there was a cure we would have had it long ago.” 

“Spoken like a man plagued by nightmares.”  Lecter stopped walking also, turning to face Will.  His eyes were even redder in the daylight, shining and quick. Will felt his perception topple out of his control, looked into Lecter's eyes and braced himself for the inevitable fall—

And remained firmly inside his own skin.  He was looking Lecter in the eye and not walking in his body.  Will blinked rapidly, amazed.

“I noticed that you are not fond of eye contact,” Lecter said.  “A common symptom, in those who often nightmare.  I was curious.  Forgive me for my intrusion, I can see that I have upset you.”   

Will looked away, mind racing.  He never met someone who he couldn’t slip inside before.   “I am fine,” he muttered, but it was a lie and they knew it. 

“Come,” said Hannibal, setting off again.  “Your friends are going to disappear on us.  I will not bring it up again, if you wish.”

“I wish,” Will said immediately, a snap in his voice. 

Lecter nodded, hands clasped behind his back.  “Then we will speak of it no more.”

And they did not speak of anything as they walked across the grounds, Lecter in his serenity and Will in his bristling defense.  He felt exposed, and he never liked feeling exposed.  He wanted his house and his dogs and to be left alone for quite some time. 

They caught up with the ladies and Bev and Alana once again took over the conversation, badgering Lecter with questions about the grounds and the estate.

Will and Hannibal did not speak another word to each other until the party departed at half-five, and Will was silent all the way back to Wolf Trap.

* * *

 

That night, Will dreamed of the forest, trees rising above him tall and black.  There was no moon in the sky and he walked barefoot, cutting his feet on sticks and stones. Everything was wet and dead. 

He walked and walked, leaving bloody footprints, until he stumbled upon a clearing and the roaring Thames, rain-swollen and gorged. 

A stag stood out in the water, his fur feathered and blacker than the sky.  He stood tall and broad-shouldered, antlers rising from his head like masts or the prow of a ship.   

The river roared and the stag leaped, clearing its hungry rage with ease.  It saw Will, and it charged. 

He wanted to move. There was plenty of time—a step to the right would have him safe among the trees again, and a step to the left would have him in the Thames, and he had come out of the river alive once.  It would spare him again.

But Will could not move, not even as the stag bore down upon him, and it speared its antlers through his chest, blood and bone and soft bits of heart, and he choked and gasped as it raised him in the air to toss him high, to skewer him on its antlers and carry his body off like a prize—

Will came down on those tines, agony bursting at each point where they ripped through his skin, and he woke up screaming. 

He made it the door, stumbled outside, and was sick in the grass, sides heaving.  The dogs whimpered and flocked around him.  His heart, still stabbed through, ached. 

“It’s alright,” he told his dogs shakily, shooing them back into the house.  The bed sheets were ruined so he slept on the rug, pack curled around him.  “It’s just a dream.”

It his hallway, he heard the stag walking, echoes of hooves on stone.


	2. east sussex, 17 november, 1816

learn and learn again

 

A month passed before Will saw Doctor Lecter again.  Almost as soon as he alighted in Black Stag Manor the man was gone again, back to town and some gruesome murder that required his attentions. 

Beverly was quite put out.  “I hope he returns before winter,” she said, watching Will furiously mangle his hedges.  “The roads in these parts have a tendency to close up by the end of November.”

“He will or he won’t,” Will muttered.  He wrestled with the hedges fruitlessly.  They had been watered perhaps too well—their branches were tender, flexible, and strong.  No sooner had Will grabbed hold of one than another bent out of his grasp.

_I should let them grow over,_ he thought.  A wall of wild, thorny bushes should keep refined Doctor Lecter well at bay. 

“You don’t much care for Doctor Lecter,” Beverly said.  Winston licked her fingers.  There was no judgment in her voice.  Miss Katz was far more tolerant of Will’s manners than she ought to be.   Will had told her so more than once.  She had only laughed, and told him that manners were not so important where  _she_ came from.  Poor manners could be excused in the name of friendship and good company. 

_Perhaps I will move to the colonies,_ Will thought, though they were not the colonies any longer.  He could take the dogs.  There were rivers and seas in the Americas, places to sail and fish, and untamed wild lands where no soul trod, and where those who did venerated the land and left solitary hunters well alone. 

Doctor Lecter had brought a change down into Will’s sleepy, quiet life.  A month after his sudden arrival and his just as sudden departure and the town was still buzzing, a veritable hive of whispers and speculation, young lads dreaming of an aristocratic patron and young ladies of a fashionable husband.

Will, because he was one of three people who had met with Doctor Lecter before his return to town, and because he was closest to the village and not a lovely woman living alone, was suddenly subjected to visitors.  The townsfolk wanted every detail.

What was the Doctor like?  Kind?  Cold?  Proud and haughty, or warm and genial?  Was he a gentleman?  He was a foreigner, was he not?  Where did he hail from?  What brought him to England?  What were his grounds like?  Does he know of the Back Stag’s history?

Will, thus hounded, had taken to spending his days in his meager few acres of woodland, hunting with the dogs.  Company, especially gawking, nosing townsfolk, was becoming intolerable.  And it was unlikely to end, especially if Lecter kept ahold of Black Stag.  Moving, even all the way to America, was starting to sound like Will’s best option. 

“No,” he told Beverly.  “No, Miss Katz, I do not.”

She sighed.  “I’ll not pretend to understand why,” she said, “but when he returns I suppose I’ll make your excuses in society.  That way Doctor Lecter will think you only busy, not rude or unsociable.”

Will managed to smile at her.  “I am rude and unsociable,” he said.

She laughed.  “Of course you are.  But he needn’t know that.  You shall be his enigmatic, noble neighbor, brave Commander of the high sighs, scourge of Napoleon’s navy.”

“Not if he happens to catch sight of my hedges,” said Will dryly, and Miss Katz laughed. 

The rest of their evening passed in companionable quiet.  Will lost his herbaceous fight and retired to the porch, picking leaves and thorns from himself and the dogs, and Beverly wrote, every now and again pausing to cross out some wrong word or line. 

When the sun started to sink down below the hills, Will offered her his elbow, called to the dogs, and walked her home. 

“My, Commander Graham,” she said, eyes bright.  “People shall  _talk._ ”

“People already talk,” Will pointed out.  The dogs yapped and barked all around them, happy with their little adventure.  “My only regular visitors are two beautiful young women, both unmarried, who spend the rest of their time with each other.  Everyone in town thinks I am either a pervert or a cuckold.”

Bev’s grin was wide and wicked.  “Poor Mister Graham,” said she.  “All alone in the woods, with a bad reputation to boot.  Shall I find you a wife to dispel these rumors?”

Will flushed in the dark.  “You could travel by carriage, Miss Katz, which would accomplish the same thing.”

She waved her hand.  “A carriage would deprive me of your company.  No wife?  Perhaps a husband, then?  They care very little about that sort of thing here in East Sussex.  It’s quite lovely.”

“All I need,” said he, “is to see you home safe, Miss Katz.”

“You unrepentant charmer!”

Will waited a moment, half-smiling.  “So that I can get back to my house and my dogs and my hedges in blessed  _peace._ ”

Bev smacked his arm delightedly, and kissed his cheek when he left her at her door.  Almondtree was a quiet estate, and Will felt more at ease than he had in days as he took his leave, his dogs running beside him. 

He had little desire to return to his bed and his nightmares, but he had an appointment in the village at half-ten that he should not miss, so he turned and went back down the lane, pack trailing behind him. 

Sleep came easily enough, but sometime after midnight, when the moon was high, Will rose from his bed, pulled on his boots and coat, and went back out into the Downs.  He was not awake, but he roamed the hills like an animal, howling with his dogs, his shadow long and wide.

* * *

 

He dreamed that he took his dogs to Black Stag Manor for a hunt.  They stood in the land in front of the old house, howling like mad beasts, and only quieted when Will raised his hands to call them off. 

Doctor Lecter came down from his house, standing on his porch in a long, dark nightgown, candle raised high over his head.  Behind him stood a shadowy figure, tall and with claws for hands, antlers scraping against the night sky.  It saw Will and bellowed like a struck hart.  

Lecter called out.

Will bared his teeth, and the lane was dancing with shadows.

Doctor Lecter smiled.

* * *

 

Will woke to sunlight and a heavy hand pounding on his door.  The dogs were beside themselves. 

“Commander!” A deep voice called.  “Commander!”

Will closed his eyes.  “A moment, please!”  He shouted back, and the dreadful noise blessedly ceased.  The dogs settled down. 

Will looked down at himself.  Mud caked his legs up to the knee.  He was wearing a loose, torn nightgown, speckled with grime, and his hair was wild and matted.  His coat and boots were nowhere to be seen. 

Hurriedly Will tugged on new clothes and laced up a pair of boots, dragged his fingers through his hair, and washed streaks of blood—his own, from a dozen tiny scratches—off his face and hands. 

Thus made marginally more presentable, he opened the door.

Sir Jack Crawford met his eyes, one eyebrow raised.  “Late night, Commander?”

Will looked away.  “You might say.”

Sir Jack had been at Will’s side when he lost himself to madness.  It was he who protected Will, who found him when he fled, who stood in Will’s defense before the Law and found him Wolf Trap and an allowance. 

Will owed Sir Jack very much.  He had visited the sanatorium often enough when he had been a Runner; he knew the fate of the sad beasts trapped within. 

He let Jack inside, and made no mention of his sleepwalking. 

“You look well enough,” Sir Jack said approvingly, patting Winston.   “The country air does you good.”

Will bowed his head.  “It does, sir.  To what do I owe this early pleasure?”

“Early?”  The old policeman looked at Will askance.  “Son, it’s half-noon.”

Will flushed.   _Damn.  There goes my supply of grain for the winter._ “Oh,” he said.  “I did not realize.”

Sir Jack, used to Will’s strange sleeping patterns, merely shook his head.  “I’m just from London,” said he.  “There was some business with a foreign diplomat and his murdered English mistress.  Very nasty business.”

“He killed her,” Will said, dully.  A common enough story.  He could see it on the back of his eyelids. 

Sir Jack bowed his head also.  “Just so,” he said, gruffly.  “Tea, Commander?”

If Crawford wanted tea, he would make it regardless of Will’s preferences.  There was very rarely any arguing with him. 

Will nodded wearily.  “Tea,” he agreed, and followed Sir Jack into the kitchen. 

Once tea had been made, Sir Jack settled into one of Will’s dully polished chairs, savored a sip, and said, “I’m not here to talk about my work, Will.”

“Oh?”  Will took a drink from his own cup.  He’d thought not.  Sir Jack always came to him with an agenda, and if a case had already been solved, he was here for a different reason. 

“I’m here on behalf of Doctor Lecter,” said he, quietly. 

Will stiffened.  “I beg your pardon?”

“Doctor Lecter is hosting a Yuletide ball in three weeks’ time,” Sir Jack explained.  “He is making the last of his preparations in town as we speak.  He has asked me to extend an invitation, since you seldom go into the village to post or receive letters.”

Will struggled to understand.  “You know Doctor Lecter?”

Sir Jack waved a hand.  “He and I have worked together before.  More, after your retirement.  He is very good at what he does.  A true gentleman.  Imagine my surprise when, two weeks ago over a dead body, he says that he’s met  _you._ ”

There was an insult somewhere in those words, but Will cared very little at the moment.  There was no malice in Sir Jack’s voice, just honest surprise and curiosity.  Even before his madness Will had been a recluse.  He’d had few friends among the Runners, just as he’d had few friends out at sea.  And he had made no secret of his dislike for the society—Sir Jack was an exception purely because he did not behave like a knight, and because though he feared and used Will’s ability like everyone else, he also protected Will in his moments of weakness.

“I called upon him with Miss Katz and Missus Bloom a month ago, now,” Will said.  “Miss Katz wished to see the Manor.  I was trying to be polite.”

Sir Jack snorted into his teacup.  “Well, you made an impression on the doctor, and he wishes you to attend his ball.  He will be most put out if you do not attend.”

Will shook his head.  “I am not good at balls,” he said.  “I’ve no formal training, and I was not the kind of officer who was fond of forcing his company on whichever port he anchored at.  I would be quite useless.  Lecter can hardly want me there.”  Will’s only meeting with the man had lasted three uncomfortable hours, during which he had snapped at, insulted, and no doubt disturbed Lecter a dozen times.  Will could not imagine the man willingly extending such an invitation.

“On the contrary, he seemed most eager to make your acquaintance again,” Sir Jack reprimanded mildly.  “He said that he finds you interesting.”

Will stared. 

Sir Jack, apparently just as baffled, shrugged.  “Doctor Lecter has a certain affection for that which does not fit.” 

A ghost of a smile crossed Will’s face.  “And I never fit, no matter where I go.  Saw that, did he?” 

Sir Jack sipped at his tea.  “Just so,” he said.  “Come to the ball, Will.  You might enjoy it.” 

“I won’t.”  Will looked out the kitchen window, into his little fields.  They had frosted over in the night—the noon sun thawed them, but water and dirty ice clung to them still.  He would have to go out and see what he could salvage, what wheat and fruit had survived the frost.  “It’s best I don’t go, Jack.”

“Are you feeling the madness again?”  And suddenly there was not enough room in Will’s kitchen for Sir Jack, who hunted monsters.  He filled the room as completely as he had filled the filthy alley where he had cornered Will at last, tall and broad and implacable.  He was barely human himself.  He was bedrock, iron braces.  The world could catch fire and burn around him and Sir Jack would still be standing there, unmovable.

There was nowhere for Will to look.  “No,” he lied, and did not think of stags and shadows, standing barefoot on Doctor Lecter’s lawn. 

Sir Jack settled.  “Then you will go,” he said.  It was a command. 

“Why?”  Will asked, frustrated and resigned.  He could not deny Jack, not when he had been ordered.  He owed the man too much. 

“The whole county has been invited,” said Sir Jack.  “The Shrike will most likely be there.”

_I need my hunting dog at my side,_ Will heard.  He bared his teeth.  “I told you in London, I cannot chase more monsters.  Not unless you want me to go mad in a room full of lordlings and ladies.  Sir.” 

“You will not go mad,” said Sir Jack, unbothered.  “And you will not be chasing monsters for me.  I only wish to have you there.  Your reputation in the criminal world is still well-known.  Your presence, as well as mine and Doctor Lecter’s, should dissuade the Shrike from any mischief.  Perhaps knowing all three of us reside in the same county will chase him out for good.”

Will met the old knight’s eyes for a moment, and saw that he would not be moved.  He gritted his teeth.  Sir Jack was lying to him.  Will could always tell—the dishonesty brushed against his cheeks like a lover’s caress.  Yet he could not refuse.  “Very well,” he said. 

Sir Jack, victorious to the last, smiled.  “Good man.  I will send a tailor along to fit you for a proper suit, unless by some small miracle you have kept your uniform…?  No?  I will commission one for you.  A coach will come collect you the night of.  You may join my party.”

Will rose and bowed stiffly.  “Sir,” he said.

Jack sighed.  “You will be fine,” he assured Will.  “A few dances, a few drinks, and your night will pass painlessly.  Who knows?  There are many eligible young women in the county.  Perhaps you will meet someone.” 

“Why is everyone so keen to find me a wife?”  Will growled, holding the door open for Sir Jack.  “I’ve no money, no profession, no  _room._ Where on earth would I keep her?”

“The barn isn’t leaning anymore,” Sir Jack suggested, a laugh in his eyes.  He stepped out into the November cold, then stopped, hat in hand.  “About what you said earlier,” he began.  “About not fitting anywhere.”

Will shrugged, smiling his familiar, crooked smile.  “No need to feel bad about it,” said he.  “It is a natural law.  Can’t be changed or reasoned with.”

“You could try harder.”  Sir Jack didn’t turn to look at Will.  “No offense meant, son.  But you could try.  Have a good afternoon.  My regards to Miss Katz and Mistress Bloom.”  And then he was gone, striding down the lane. 

Will slammed the door.  Rude, but it made him feel better.  “Try harder,” he said at the closed door. 

Winston and his siblings panted, nosing Will’s hands.   _Try harder._ To what end?  Will had tried, when he’d been a lad.  No one had a place for a half-wild sailor’s brat, let alone one with ghost eyes and spirits in his ears, telling him all sorts of things he had no business knowing.  Really, Will had been lucky not to get killed.  The Lord had spared him the rope and flame; asking to belong somewhere was asking too much.

Bad humor brewing about him like a storm cloud, Will spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up after himself and tending his fields.  In his dream-walking he had caked mud into every part of his home and left bloody fingerprints on the stairs.  Leaves lay piled by his door. 

_I cure nightmares,_ he remembered Lecter saying, almost involuntarily. 

Will had been plagued by nightmares since he was a small boy.  His father had taken him around all of England, to healers and foreign magick men and Sinte women, searching for anyone and anything that could help.  No one could.  The nightmares were a part of Will.  He had long ago come to accept them. 

He would prefer, of course, if they didn’t leave mud in his bed and leaves in his doorway.  (He wondered if Lecter, with all of his learning, would be able to succeed where all others had failed.  Likely not, and Will resolved that he would never ask.  He did not need nor want the doctor in his head.  It was bad enough already that they were neighbors.)

“A bloody ball,” Will muttered, as the afternoon turned to evening and the air went from crisp to cold.  He gathered the dogs.  Snow was in the air.  His shoulder ached fiercely as it always did when snow hung in the clouds, a leftover from Spanish seas, and if he did not let the dogs run now they would chew his already derelict furniture to ruin.  Bundling himself up in a warmer coat—he still had no idea where the other had gone—he led the happy pack outside.  A short walk never failed to calm Will’s nerves and set him at ease.

Mercifully, the cold and threat of snow had sent the bulk of Little Baltimore into their homes and off the lane.  Will walked the road to Almondtree in blessed solitude, whistling every so often to corral the dogs.  He even nodded half-sociably at Brown, Chilton the naturalist’s manservant, as he rode hard past, racing the weather back to the village. 

“Best hurry, Mister Graham!”  Brown hollered over his shoulder.  “There’s a storm a-coming!” 

Will happened to think very little of land bound storms.  A bit of wind and snow what nothing compared to a sea gale or the horrific, howling hurricanes he’d witnessed as a common sailor in the West Indies, but nonetheless he dutifully turned around, calling to the pack. 

He had lost his better boots last night, and did not wish to subject these, or the dogs, to snow before winter began. 

No sooner had he turned than snow began to fall, softly at first, then thick and cold.

_Of course,_ Will thought, pulling his coat tighter around himself.   _Just my luck._

He had to tempt God.  Halfway home, Will heard the muffled thunder of hoof beats on the lane.  He half-turned; a dark beast careened through the snow, heedless of all in its path and fighting its reigns, ignoring its rider’s cries. 

“Watch out!”  Will shouted, but it was too late to stop the horse or its rider.

Will dove off the lane, tearing holes in his pants and getting fresh snow in his mouth and his coat.  The dogs followed, raised to a frenzy.  The horse reared, shrieking, and its rider, though he tried to cling to the beast, fell heavily to the ground.  Free of its burden and perhaps frightened by all of the barking, baying dogs around it, the horse dropped back to all four limbs, loose a frantic cry, and fled back the way it came. 

“Sir,” Will called, climbing painfully to his feet.  His wrists ached and he felt fresh blood wet his face.  He could not feel his injured arm at all.  “Sir, are you alright?”

“Yes,” said a muffled, familiar voice.  “Quite so, I believe.”

Will stilled.  “Doctor Lecter.”  The dogs began to growl, sensing Will’s unease. 

The taller man rose to his feet, wiping mud and snow from his coat.  Will could not see his features in the dark and the snow, but he saw that the man’s face was also wet with fresh blood.  “Commander Graham,” Lecter said.  “My most sincere apologies.  I did see you in the road.  Are you hurt?”

“I am fine,” Will snapped.  “Doctor Lecter,” he added, and shushed the dogs. 

Lecter didn’t seem to mind their growling.  “Are these your hounds?”  He asked, unbothered by both their ill temper and Will’s general unkempt state. 

Will forced himself to relax.  “Yes,” he said. 

“Fine animals.  I hope I did not startle them too badly?”  Will could not make out his expression in the dark, and dearly wished he could. 

“Nothing they won’t recover from.”  Will hesitated, manners forcibly learned prickling the back of his eyes.  Lecter had no horse and no carriage, and snow still fell thickly.  The road north was naught but heavy, swirling white.   New Baltimore was close, but not terribly so, and Lecter was new to South Downs.  He might not know the way.  Will might think little of land storms, but cold could kill a man on land or sea.  “Come, sir.  My estate is not far.  You may wait out the storm there and call for your people tomorrow morning.”

“I could not impose,” said Lecter immediately.  “Especially not since my carelessness led me here.  The town is close, is it not?” 

“Wolf Trap is closer.”

“I thank you for your kindness, Commander, but I—”

“Do you know the way to New Baltimore?”  Will interrupted, his patience for manners at an end.  Feeling was returning to his shoulder now, and the pain was making him breathless. 

Lecter paused.  “No,” he admitted.  “I do not.” 

“Then Wolf Trap welcomes you.  I’ll not heave a man to die of the cold,” Will added, trying to sound stern.  “My estate is not as large as yours, sir, but I have a spare bed, a fireplace, and hot tea.”

The blurry shape that was Doctor Lecter inclined his head.  “Then I thank you, Commander.  Your hospitality is most welcome.

Stiffly, Will nodded in return.  “This way, then.  It is not far.”

Obligingly, Lecter allowed Will, limping determinedly, to lead the way.  Will’s mind was spinning.  His home was a refuge.  Lecter had no place there.

He would look down on Wolf Trap, besides.  It was a far cry from the faded grandeur of Black Stag.  Lecter was a very wealthy man—he had probably never lived in such a place all his life. 

But he had no place dying in the snow, either, not while Will was in a position to help him.   _Well,_ he told himself bracingly,  _at least he will revoke his invitation once he realizes how far from society I am._

Lost in thought, Will did not see the slick patch of muddy road until he had already lost his footing and his leg gave out beneath him.  Will swore, buckling, and brace himself to hit the ground again.

A strong hand caught him and held him fast.  “You said you were unhurt, Commander.”  Lecter’s voice carried a tone of mild reproach. 

“Will,” Will growled back, through gritted teeth, “and I am  _fine._ ”  He tried to get his legs back underneath him, but he could not.  He could only stand again with Lecter’s help, and when the man let him go, Will wobbled dangerously. 

Gently, Lecter tucked his arm under Will’s shoulders and held him up.  “Your home is not far, I hope?”

“No,” muttered Will, embarrassed and frayed with it.  “It is not far.”

Doctor Lecter sounded like he was smiling.  “Then let us walk,” he said.  “You can lean on me.  It was my recklessness that caused the trouble.”

Will said nothing else until Wolf Trap swam into view, his hedges blanketed in snow.  Lecter’s arm was warm and solid against his back and he seemed unaware of the tension in Will’s shoulders.  “Dogs to the barn first,” he said roughly, and Lecter obligingly helped Will hobble to the barn—leaning again, under the snow and the wind—and usher the dogs inside.

They whined at him, but he turned away and limped to the house.  It would be better if they were kept outside tonight, and away from Lecter.  The barn was warm enough, and it was only a night. 

The house itself was dark and cold.  With Lecter’s aid, Will lit the oil lamps and started a fire in the sitting room, letting the warmth and flickering light spread across the place. 

“You are injured,” Lecter said, gesturing at Will’s leg and his torn palms. 

“As are you,” Will returned.  “More than I was led to believe.” 

Lecter’s face was tacky with dried blood, a cut somewhere in his hair still bleeding sluggishly.  He was holding his right arm stiffly, and Will could see a nasty red bruise forming underneath the gore on his face. 

Lecter smiled.  “Head wounds look worse than they are,” said he, easily.  “It is not as bad as you fear, Commander.  Though I could use a rag and boiling water…?” 

Stiffly, the younger man got to his feet and limped into the kitchen, hand on the wall for support.  Lecter trailed behind him, and when Will turned to look, he saw that Lecter’s eyes swept over the whole of his house and his life, gleaming in the half-light.

“You have a truly lovely home,” he said, and looked Will in the eyes.  “It suits you well.”

Will bristled, sensing an insult, but he was again struck by how little he could glean from the doctor’s eyes.  He saw pain, and tiredness, but nothing that took him from his own body.  It was strange.  He let Lecter’s remark go uncontested.  “It will be a moment,” he said.  “Tea, sir?” 

Lecter inclined his head.  “You have lived here for two years, have you not?”

“Yes.”  Will methodically went about the process of boiling water and making tea.  The familiar movements calmed him some, and took his mind off the pain in his leg and his discomfort.  His mind was screaming at him, demanding that he either flee or get Lecter out of his house.  He felt shadows out in the fields, scratching at the barn door, whispering for entry.   _No,_ he told himself,  _you must not.  Lecter means no harm.  It was a mistake._ “How long did you live in London?  Some twenty years?”

“Twenty-three,” Lecter said.  He did not sit, rather stood with his hands clasped behind his back, proper as any lordling Will had ever had the misfortune to meet, but his eyes were bright with polite curiosity. 

“And you come from a place called Lithuania?” 

Lecter waved a hand.  “I left Lithuania long ago.  It is called something else, now.  Eastern Europeans have ripped it apart and taken whichever pieces they liked best.”

“I am sorry,” said Will, honestly.  He knew what it was like to be homeless. 

“Do not be.”  Lecter smiled crookedly.  “As I said, I left when I was very young.  I hardly remember the place.”  Something scraped against the edges of Will’s perception, and then it was gone before he could grab hold of it.  “I spend my boyhood in France.  It was from there I came here, fleeing Robespierre and the winter riots.” 

Will had been with his father, then.  He had been a cabin boy in the West Indies, hunting pirates, but even in Havana he had heard of the bloody Parisian winters. “Did you ever wish to return?”

The doctor smiled again.  “To Napoleon?  No, I never thought of returning.  London and I were well-suited to each other.”

“And yet you have left the city?”  Will made it a question, politely phrased, and tended to the boiling water.  His shoulder ached. 

“It was time for a change,” said Lecter.  He gratefully took a hot, soaking rag from Will, throwing his coat over a chair and rolling up his sleeves.  Blood stained his collar.  “I tired of London society and its constant  _prying._ ”

Will laughed. 

“You have experienced them before?”  Lecter dabbed at his injury, wiping blood from his face.  Snow had melted in his hair, plastering it to his cheeks and the back of his neck.  Will looked away. 

“A few times.  I was—I was with the Row Street Runners, so our paths rarely crossed, but I have met a few of the nobility.  I had a robbery in the Duke of Sussex’s apartments once, and the spring before I left, a baronet who murdered a prostitute.”

“The Duke of Gloucester’s bastard?” 

Will nodded.  “The same,” he said.  “As you can imagine, the Duke did not take too kindly to a common bobby sticking his nose into his Grace’s private family affairs.”

“Did he actually call them that?  Private family affairs?” 

“He did,” Will said dryly. 

Lecter smiled.  “He would.  He has always been insufferable, and oblivious to the lives of common folk.  If I may speak freely…?” 

“By all means, Doctor.  I would prefer it.”

The older man inclined his head.  “As would I.  The Duke of Gloucester has always been, and will always be, I fear, unless his new wife has the constitution of a general, something of a bounder.”

Will startled. 

Lecter’s smile had turned sly and knowing.  “Forgive me,” he said.  “I overstep.”

“No,” Will muttered, looking away again.  “You caught me unaware, is all?  I did not expect a wealthy doctor to know such things, much less say them about his peers.”

“I would rather be peers with a hog,” Lecter said, quite frankly.  The rag was still pressed to his face.  “His Grace has the manners of one, at any rate.”

“May I ask what sparked such animosity?”  Will asked.  He was curious about this Doctor Lecter—never in his life had be heard a high gentlemen take such a tone with someone like Will, nor had he heard the same use such words or speak so freely. 

“His Grace is rude,” explained Lecter.  Some of the smiling had gone out of him and there was that flat, unreadable look in his eyes again.  Will felt something wild and dark caress his perception, a shadow flickering just at the edge of his eye, and vanishing when he blinked. 

_Control yourself,_ he told himself sternly, but strangely he did not feel all that wild and mad.  Lecter’s presence seemed grounding, almost.  He felt like Jack, bedrock and forged steel. 

“Rudeness is unspeakably ugly to me.” 

And suddenly Will was not in his own skin anymore, and his vision blurred.  As soon as it had come over him it left him again, and he sagged against the kitchen table, his knuckles white.

Lecter was at his side at once.  “Are you quite alright, Commander?”

“Fine,” said Will, through gritted teeth.  He shook his head like one of his dogs trying to rid itself of water.  “I am fine.” 

And he was.  When he stepped out of body he often had difficulty stepping back into it, but this time he had been gone less than a moment, the briefest flash of looking through Lecter’s eyes at himself, pale and drawn, mud caked into his hair, and then he was back in his own body. 

Lecter’s hand did not leave his elbow.  “Let me see,” he instructed, and there was such authority in his voice that Will did not argue.  Careful, impersonal fingers probed Will’s head and face, examining his injuries.  “Well enough,” the doctor said at last, and pulled away.  His face was a mask of polite concern. 

Will forced himself to smile, and knew it was more a grimace.  “Well enough,” he agreed.  The kettle began to whistle behind him, sharp and shrill. 

The moment was broken.  Will settled back into his skin and whatever door had been open in Lecter’s eyes was now closed.  The feeling of bedrock and steel had returned. 

Confused, tired, and aching, Will dutifully finished making tea, proffered a cup to Lecter, and took a long pull of his own. 

Lecter savored a sip.  “Thank you,” he said.

Will nodded, and they finished their tea in silence.  Lecter dabbed the blood from his face and wrapped his injured arm with cloth, then motioned for Will to sit. 

“Allow me to look at your leg, Commander Graham.”

“Just Graham,” said Will, tiredly.  As free as Lecter had been with his criticism of the Duke of Gloucester, he got the distinct impression that the man would not call him Will. 

“Graham.  Your leg?”

Reluctantly, Will sat down at the dull, scratched kitchen chair and extended his injured leg.  It throbbed fiercely, but he had had much worse during his time at sea.  He hissed when Lecter brushed his fingers against Will’s swollen ankle. 

“Your leg is not broken,” Lecter decided, “merely sprained, but I imagine that it is still painful.  Do you have any more cloth?” 

Will gestured to one of his cupboards.  It was full of clean, plain linen, three bottles of spirits, polished needles, and heavy black thread. 

Doctor Lecter raised an eyebrow. 

“The dogs,” Will explained, tiredly.  “They are prone to injury.  I—I learned some field medicine in the Navy.  It serves us well here.”

“I do admire a man who is prepared,” said Lecter, and took some of the cloth and a bottle of spirits, which he set aside.  The cloth he wrapped around Will’s foot expertly, and the spirits he used to clean the cut on his own face.  “Better?”  said he. 

“Better.” Will tested his leg.  It hurt still, but whiskey would solve that, and now it held his weight.  “Thank you, Doctor.”

Lecter gave him a half-smile.  “It is the least I could do, given that I am the one who drove you off the road.” 

Will’s lips thinned, but he said nothing.  “Come,” he finally murmured, heaving himself up.  “I will show you to that spare bed I promised.” 

Lecter obligingly followed Will down the hallway, thanked him for the room, and stayed when Will left, limping stiffly for his own bedroom. 

Alone at last, his mind whirled.  He wanted to be with his dogs.  He did not want to be here, in his home with a stranger in his spare bed, and shadows out in in his fields.

He had never slipped in and out of his skin so fast before.  And he had never met a man who he could not become, if he tried.  Will usually did not make a habit of trying—he did all that he could to avoid slipping into another’s skin.  He avoided eye contact and dug bloody crescents into his palms.  He lived alone with only a few regular visitors and kept his visits in town to a minimum. 

Will had been mad once.  He had slipped too deeply into the skin of a killer and half-become the killer himself.  He had almost always been able to drag himself back into his own mind, but that time he had not.  He had spent four days in a murderer’s skin.  He had no desire to repeat the experience. 

But Lecter was the first person Will had met that he could not read.  Whatever lived in Lecter’s head was closed to him.

Will felt the shadows out in the fields, heard them scratching, and yet hadn’t lost himself to them, not even in that strange, vulnerable moment when Lecter had faltered. 

It was unusual.

As was Will’s houseguest.  A well-bred doctor who spoke freely to a common sailor, who used a common man’s words, who slept willingly in a house with a madman. 

Lecter knew who and what Will was.  He was sure of it.  He had been asking about Will in London—Sir Jack had said as much—and while his brief foray into madness had been years ago, London never truly forgot its monsters.  

Doctor Lecter knew. 

And yet he stayed here, and bandaged Will’s injuries, and thanked him for his mediocre tea.

It was a mystery new and foreign to the old sailor, and he stayed awake long into the night, trying not to think of Lecter’s careful hands and dark, guarded eyes. 


	3. east sussex, 14 december, 1816

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the day of the ball and the whole county is attending; Will makes a new friend, questions Lecter's taste in decor, and is dragged into a complication he would rather avoid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait! All forms of address are correct except for the ones that aren't.

learn and learn again

 

The day of Lecter’s ball came faster than Will would have liked. 

The Thursday before, Sir Jack arrived at Wolf Trap with his usual punctuality and a Commander’s uniform so new Will could still smell the tailor’s shop on the fabric. 

“Try it on,” Sir Jack ordered.  Will did not bother arguing.  He, with some difficulty, shrugged into the uniform and did up his buttons. 

It fit him like a second skin.  He had always been well-suited to the navy.  His father had served for twenty-nine years and raised Will to it—seafaring was as close to a trade as the Graham clan had. 

Will had been a ship’s boy by the time he was nine, and he had slowly worked his way up through the ranks.  He was a natural seaman and a quick learner.  At twenty-eight he was promoted to Commander, a position he enjoyed, and he served with distinction through the war until the Battle of Basque Roads.  The captain, finally unable to stomach Will’s various oddities and defects and presented with the opportunity to be rid of him legally, dismissed him, and Will, without any other trade or schooling to fall back on, ended up in London.  He burned his uniform in a fit of spite some years later, when he still had not been able to adjust to the feeling of stone underfoot. 

This uniform, if possible, fit even better than his original. 

“You remembered all of my medals,” Will said, examining himself in the dirty, chipped mirror he kept in the spare bedroom.  The Will Graham before him was unkempt, with wild hair and half a beard, but in a uniform with polished medals gleaming on his breast, he looked almost respectable.

“Of course,” said Sir Jack, gruffly.  He looked Will over with a critical, though self-satisfied, eye.  “It fits you well enough.  Can I trust you to keep it here, or shall I take it to spare it from your dogs?”

As loath as Will was to attend the ball, he rather liked the uniform and could not imagine letting Sir Jack’s benefaction go to waste.  He knew how much a uniform cost. 

“I will keep it,” said Will.  “And well away from the dogs, too.  Where did you get the medals?”

Satisfied, Sir Jack clapped Will on the shoulder.  “They were among your belongings back on Row Street.  I kept them after you left.  I will be by to collect you on Saturday,” he said, and headed for the door.  “At half-six.  And cut your hair.  You look like a sheepdog.”

And that was that.  Will, who had forsaken his hedges and his fields in the days after Doctor Lecter’s stay, tramped through his wild estate and into town.

They received him well enough.  The barber handled him gingerly, as if he was afraid Will would bite. 

Will did not.  He even exchanged a few pleasantries, got his beard trimmed, and bought a new greatcoat to replace the one he’s lost in the woods. 

The townsfolk, used to a surly, short-tempered Will, did not antagonize him or even pester him with questions about the ball.  Will doubted that they knew he had been invited, or that if he had been he had accepted said invitation. 

He returned to Wolf Trap in no worse a mood than he left it.  He was not eagerly anticipating the ball by any stretch of his considerable imagination, but now that he knew there was no getting out of it, between Lecter, Sir Jack, and the ladies, he thought there was little point in working himself into a black humor. 

He passed Friday reading and hunting with the dogs.  He did not nightmare.

On Saturday, he awoke besieged by the anxiety he sought to outrun.  He knew Sir Jack and Missus Alana and Bev, and trusted them, and trusted himself around them.  Lecter he was still wary of, but he had broken bread with the man and had his wounds tended to by the man.  He had yet to see Lecter’s courtesy fail. 

But if the newest lordling in the county was throwing a ball, all of East Sussex high society would be in attendance.  Will did not know them.  He did not trust them, and he most certainly did not trust himself around them. 

Panic, like the wind off a squall, began to fill Will’s chest.  The dogs, sensing his change in demeanor, licked his fingertips, whining. 

_I will be fine,_ he told himself, breathing in deeply.  He thought of the sea, and his father, and the solidity of a ship beneath his feet. 

_Jack won’t let anything happen._ Knowing the old bulldog, he would be on high alert, watching for his Shrike.  If he expected the Shrike to be at the ball, he would probably even be armed.

It was a grim sort of reassurance, knowing that Sir Jack would shoot Will if he descended into madness again. 

By six, Will had managed to dress himself, buttoning his coat with shaking fingers.  He pricked himself half a dozen times trying to pin his medals on. 

When he looked again, the man in the mirror was pale and clammy.  He looked half-dead, like a corpse they sometimes pulled out of the sea.  Will hoped it was only the light. 

At half-six on the dot, Jack arrived in a carriage that cost more than Will’s entire estate.  Will, already resigned to an evening of feeling his inferior social status and wallowing in the wealth of others, said nothing and only climbed in beside Sir Jack. 

“My Lady,” he murmured, bowing to Lady Bella, Sir Jack’s wife.

“Commander Graham,” she said, just as quietly.  She inclined her head.  She and Will politely tolerated each other.  Lady Bella was not fond of the work Will represented—murder and blood and Sir Jack away from home—and Will found her quite frankly rather intimidating. 

Five miles passed in awkward silence.  Sir Jack tried to engage him, but Will was alternately winding himself into deeper states of anxiety and trying to calm himself down.

“Oh,” Lady Bella finally said, after a time. “We have arrived.”

The last time Will saw Black Stag Manor, it had been decaying, nearly lifeless except for the sole butler and Doctor Lecter standing out on the porch, holding a candle aloft. 

Will, remembering that particular dream, shuddered. 

But this Black Stag was alive again.  Fire blazed merrily on either side of the long lane.  Thick, woven ropes of pine boughs and glittering tinsel hung from the bare branches of the trees.  The manor itself was lit by gaslight.  The rotting floorboards had been replaced, the ivy cleared away, and a fresh, gleaming dark paint applied to the house. 

Dozens of carriages moved through the lane, horses snorting, people dressed in fine clothes disembarking and walking to the house, heads thrown back in laughter. 

Sir Jack’s carriage rattled to a halt. 

“You will be fine,” he said, hand on Will’s shoulder for a moment, and then escorted his wife into the ball. 

Will could do nothing but follow. 

All at once, light and noise and color assaulted him.  Black Stag buzzed with waiters rushing back and forth, society dancing and singing, _people_ pressing up against the edges of Will’s perception insistently, demandingly, and he felt—

“Commander Graham,” Lecter called, and Will blinked. 

Doctor Lecter stood at the end of his long hall, flanked on one side by Alana and Bev and by a blonde, elegant little woman on the other. 

“Doctor Lecter,” Will found himself answering, striding past the rest of the guests to his host.  “Missus Bloom, Miss Katz.”  He bowed to the ladies.  “My lady.”

The blonde woman gave Will a polite, if distant, half-smile, and extended her hand.  “Sir,” she murmured. 

Will obligingly took her hand, momentarily startled by its coolness, and kissed it. 

“Commander, may I present to you the Right Honorable Lady Bedelia, Comtesse du Maurier.  Lady du Maurier, Commander William Graham.”

“Charmed, sir.”  The Comtesse had a lovely voice, hardly a trace of an accent distinguishable to even Will’s trained ears.  Had he not spent many years near the French, he would not have caught it. 

“Have you lived long in England, my lady?

Comtesse du Maurier’s smile became a fraction less distant.  “Yes,” she said.  “Coming on twenty-four years this spring.  How could you tell I am French?  Most assume my husband was and I his English wife.”

“I spent many years among the French, my lady,” Will said.  He risked a moment of eye contact.  Comtesse du Maurier felt cool and detached, like a breeze felt from the top of a crow’s nest.  “I heard the Paris in your voice.”

“You have a good ear, Commander.  Doctor Lecter was not wrong when he told me you were perceptive.”

Before Will could even begin to form a proper reply, the Comtesse turned, murmured in Lecter’s ear, bowed to Alana and Bev, and departed, her movements quick and graceful. 

“I am very glad you could join us tonight, Commander,” Lecter said, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes.  “I must greet my other guests.  I trust our friends will be safe under your watchful eye?”

“Never safer,” Bev laughed, taking one of Will’s arms. 

Alana, grinning also, took the other, and together they steered Will towards the ballroom. 

“You look quite dashing, Commander,” Alana said, a laughing light in her eye.  Her dress was deep, rich blue, like the sky over the Downs at night, woven through with silver threads and dotted with pearls.  Her hair shone and her pale cheeks were flushed with color. 

Bev was just as beautiful.  She wore a dress the color of fresh cream and a necklace of dark sapphires, tiny blue gems winking in her hair and at her wrists.  

“You two are mirror images of each other,” Will said. 

Bev grinned.  “He noticed!  And you, my dear friend, look very dashing, with your buttons and your medals.”

“Sir Jack insisted,” Will muttered, aware that he was flushing a dull red. 

“As he should,” Alana said, firmly.  “Now let us see if we can find you a pretty wife or a handsome husband, mm?”

“Let’s not,” Will said, but they paid him no mind, dragging him into the ballroom proper.

There were entirely too many people.  The sound of them hit Will like a hammer.  He suddenly found it quite difficult to breathe. 

“Sir Jack and Lady Bella,” Alana said, nodding at the pair.  They were dancing slowly and sweetly, oblivious to the revelers around them. 

“Oh, Lord Verger is here.”  Bev was watching a man younger than Will as he talked animatedly at another cluster of young men, a dark-haired young woman at his elbow.  Her face was pinched and unhappy, but she held herself well. 

“The Right Honorable Lord Verger,” she explained to Will.  “He just came into the barony a few months ago upon the death of his father.  That is his twin sister, the Honorable Miss Margot.”

“I wasn’t aware that the barony made a habit of marrying its daughters to old fishermen,” Will said dryly, catching Bev’s meaningful look. 

Alana swatted his arm lightly.  “None of that,” she told him sternly.  “Now pay attention.  You’ll want to know who’s who if you want to avoid making a fool of yourself to society.”

_That is a guarantee,_ Will thought, but bowed to Alana and Bev all the same.  He knew what they were trying to do for him, and he appreciated their efforts, even if it was futile. 

“Most of the town’s wives and daughters are in attendance,” Bev murmured.  “Doctor Lecter invited the whole county.”

And now that he looked, Will did see familiar faces.  The barber’s wife, the baker’s three daughters, the butcher’s twin sons, chasing skirts as was their wont. 

“Sir Jack and Sir Dolarhyde are the only knights in attendance.  There are a few baronets here and about, and Lord Verger and Comtesse du Maurier, but mostly just the people of the Downs.”

“People you know,” said Alana.  She laid her hand on Will’s elbow.  “No reason to be nervous.”

“Or grouchy,” Bev piped up, and Will couldn’t help but smile.

“Thank you,” he said.  “You are very kind.  I—”

But he was interrupted by Bev’s sharp intake of breath.  Startled, he spun to follow her gaze. 

The crowd had stopped dancing.  Coming across the ballroom were two ladies, elegantly dressed and glittering with more jewels that Will had ever seen.  One was a woman grown, her stride confident and imperious; the other was yet a girl.  Will could feel her anxiety.  His own fingers started to tremble sympathetically. 

Sir Jack was the first to react.  “My Lady Hobbs,” he said, his voice clear and carrying, and bowed low.  “My Lady Abigail.”

The rest of the crowd did the same, bowing and curtseying respectfully.  _The Earl’s family,_ Will thought, alarmed.  He looked up from his bow a moment too early and caught the Lady Abigail’s eye.  He flushed.  She smiled, shyly, and curtseyed to him. 

Lady Hobbs and her daughter joined Sir Jack, engaging in quiet conversation with Lady Bella.  She had been a lady before Sir Jack was knighted, a baron’s daughter who fell in love with a commoner and married him, despite her father’s protestations.  It was said that she and Lady Hobbs were fast friends. 

“I didn’t know they’d be here,” Bev hissed, mostly to Alana.  “They usually winter in town!  Do you think his Lordship will attend?  I have never met him.  They say he is a fearsome fellow.”

The room all around Will was charged as if lightning-struck; the dancing had begun again in earnest, but the mood was sharper now, rippling with intent.  Will could feel it settling around him. 

He clasped his hands behind his back to hide their shaking. 

“Let us see if good Sir Jack will introduce us,” Bev said, a wicked gleam in her eye.  No doubt a story was brewing in her mind.  She raised her arm.

“No,” said Will, knowing in his heart it was already too late. 

Sir Jack saw Bev’s raised hand and guided his party towards the three of them. 

Will closed his eyes, resigned.  Perhaps, if he was lucky, Lady Hobbs would realize that Will was no lordling or knight and take her highborn daughter away to shield her from his common influence. 

As it was, Alana and Bev were more than happy to introduce themselves to the Earl’s family and listen to Lady Bella and Lady Hobbs trade society gossip. 

Sir Jack caught Will’s eye and held it, a question.  Will shrugged minutely. 

“Your uniform looks different than any I have seen, sir.”  The Earl’s daughter’s voice was quiet, but not especially demure.  Will was so startled by her engagement that he could help but reply. 

“It is a naval officer’s uniform, my lady,” he said. 

“You are a sailor?”

“For many years.  I retired some seven years ago.”

“Why?”

Will had never met a noble’s daughter who was so frank and forward, and once again he was startled into replying.  “Injury,” he said.

Lady Abigail made a sympathetic sound.  She was a pretty girl, not a classic beauty by fresh-faced and with a sharp, glittering intelligence in her eyes that seemed to light her up.  Will risked a glance at her mother.  Lady Hobbes did not seem to notice her daughter’s choice of conversational partner nor particularly care. 

“What was it like?”  Lady Abigail asked.

“Sailing?”

The girl nodded. 

Will considered.  His last years at sea had been all blood, death, and the very edge of madness.  There had been so much fear and pain that the emotions had sunk into the wood of the ship, creaked in the sails, and turned sour and stale below deck. 

Will had nearly sleepwalked himself off the side into the dark water more than once. He had never looked anyone in the eye.  Rage and fear and despair not his own had come to live in his bones. 

“Freedom,” Will said, steering his thoughts away from the war.  He blinked away shadows. 

“You must have travelled,” said Lady Abigail, almost wistfully. 

Will inclined his head.  “Through much of Europe,” he replied.  “And much of the West Indies as well.  They are much warmer than here,” he added, catching the plain interest on Lady Abigail’s face, “and much more given to sunlight, though their food is ill-suited for an Englishman.  Or woman.”

Lady Abigail smiled, seemingly delighted.  “I should like to visit one day,” she declared.  “And the East as well.  Have you been to the Orient, sir…?”

“Graham,” Will said, and remembered his manners.  “Commander Will Graham.”  He bowed again.  “My Lady.”

She smiled at him again.

“I have not been farther east than Cape Town.  My ship was scheduled to sail to Peking, but the war brought us back.”

“Do you still wish to sail, Commander?”

Will shook his head.  “I am settled,” he said, “and I cannot think of a single ship that would happily welcome my dogs.”

Lady Abigail apparently adored all manner of creatures.  She asked Will after each of his hounds individually, and then when the players began a new piece, grabbed his hand excitedly.

“Will you dance with me, sir?”  She asked earnestly, color high on her cheeks.  “I just adore this song.”

_It is possible,_ Will thought, _that this girl’s manners are as bad as my own._

Still, he allowed her to pull him out into the mass of people.  Will was a poorly dancer but an excellent mimic; cautiously, fearing the sudden onset of madness, he opened his perception. 

Will’s odd ability was not a mechanism he had much control over.  Long years of practice and fear of burning had taught him some tricks, but it was not like a rudder beneath his hands or a key in a lock.  Rather, it was a wind in a sail; it could be used and even welcomed, as long as Will kept a watchful eye on the weather. 

If he slipped or wasn’t watchful, it could rip him to shreds and splinters. 

After a few moments, the general mood had filled him up and he knew instinctively what to do.  He stood across from Lady Abigail and danced with her. 

Will was sure that it was not the best dance Lady Abigail had shared.  She undoubtedly had many suitors, all of good breeding and better disposition, who had spent hours perfecting their footwork. 

But Will was not courting Lady Abigail, merely dancing, and he bowed low, politely. 

She grinned at him.  “Another, Commander?”

Will stayed on the ballroom floor with her for several more dances.  He very rarely made friends and for once he decided to enjoy the easy connection. 

Lady Abigail was lonely.  Will saw it in her eyes.  The only child of the Earl, his only heir.  A surrogate son—the Earl taught her hunt, taught her his business so that she might follow him, in time.  Will felt her gun callouses through her gloves whenever their hands touched. 

She was lonely and odd and, Will suspected, rather stifled.  Lord Hobbs did not have any other children or even any nieces or nephews—Bev had once teased that she should marry into the family, had he any brothers or open-minded sisters.  Any lord without an heir must surely want to keep his only child close, no matter how desperately she wanted to see the world. 

Will resolved to ask Bev and Alana to befriend the girl, as no one, he believed, especially not a young woman kind enough to dance with the town recluse, should be without friends. 

He turned around with her once more, smiling, riding the crowd’s feeling of happiness and gaiety like the westerly winds, and heard, “Mad Graham’s dancing with the _Earl’s_ daughter?”

The naked disgust caught Will off guard.  He turned too soon, missing the next step, and stumbled. 

A few sharp laughs crawled across his skin.  “What is he doing, trying to court the poor girl?  Like the Earl would allow a mad sailor near his daughter?  He can’t even dance, the cur.” 

It was suddenly as if all Will could hear were the whispers. 

“I heard he killed a man in London.”

“He’s only half a man—the rest of his mind is wild and unformed, like a beast’s.  That’s why he gets on with dogs so well, and people not at all!” 

“You know, he was odd in town today, too quiet, like.” 

Will broke off from Abigail, fury and disgust and contempt straining inside of his skin, a violence that dwelled in his heart and railed against his mind stirring hungrily. 

“Commander,” Lady Abigail began, but Will pulled his arm out of her concerned grip, not looking her in the eyes. 

“Excuse me,” he said, feeling like his mouth was full of fangs, and fled. 

Shadows and whispers followed. 

_Stupid,_ he cursed, slipping past knots of people, shying away from every touch.  _Stupid, stupid._ Why had he opened his perception?  There were hundreds of people here, and all their demons with them. 

Their petty jealousies, their cruelty, their disdain and their malice.  These things were hidden under the barest veneer of civility, frills and lace, but they were there, and Will felt all of them. 

Panic clawed at the back of his throat.  He wanted to _hurt_ someone.  These people would like nothing better than to lay Will down behind the house and cut his heart out.  They would see him burn. 

Will finally stumbled into an empty, lonely hallway, fighting for breath.  The rest of Black Stag had been decked for the ball, but this stretch of the manor was barren, smelling of must and age. 

An ancient stag skull hung at the far end of the hall, draped in shadows. 

Will went to it as though he still dreamed.  It was the biggest hart he had ever seen.  It must have been the size of a horse when it lived.  Its antlers almost touched the ceiling and looked sharp enough still to pierce a man’s heart. 

The skull was old and yellow, nearly black in places, and cool to the touch.  In the depths of his agitation, Will could swear that its dark, empty eyes blinked at him.

He heard hooves on the marble behind him and whirled, half-snarling. 

Doctor Lecter stood with his hands held out in front of him and concern writ plainly on his face.  “Commander,” he said, “are you quite alright?”

For the smallest moment, Will thought of flying at him.  He thought of tearing out Lecter’s throat. 

But then the shadows and the bloodlust abandoned him and Will was left grey and shaking, his perception collapsing like a windless sail. 

He sagged back against the wall, mindful of the skull.  “Quite alright, sir,” he said, aware that his rough voice and the pallor of his skin betrayed him. 

Lecter drew nearer, staying outside of Will’s reach, but his concern was palpable.  “What happened?”  _Are you mad?_ Will heard. 

“I—” he began, and stopped.  “I am not a favorite here,” he said finally, unable to meet Lecter’s eyes. 

“I heard what some of the townspeople were saying.”  Lecter’s voice was hard and he drew nearer still.  “Their rudeness was quite unwarranted, Commander.  The young Lady Hobbs has few friends, from what I understand.  Your kindness and courtesy to her was very noble.”

Will smiled, lopsided.  “I am not noble, Doctor Lecter.  I warned Sir Jack.  I should not have come, I’m sorry.  I will go, and spare yourself—and myself—more embarrassment.” 

“It is not you nor I that should be embarrassed,” Lecter said firmly.  “But rather those that would whisper behind the backs of a young lady and a decorated naval hero.”

“I am not—”

Lecter held up a hand.  “You are an honored guest in my home. Those who might say otherwise have been asked to leave.  Lady Hobbs is positively furious.”

Will flushed, tired and angry and embarrassed.  “I did not want to cause a fuss, Doctor,” he snapped.  He had not even wanted to come at all. 

Lecter took no offense, merely stepped within Will’s reach at last.  “The fault is not your own,” he said.  “If you must leave, will you at least see young Lady Hobbs again, to assure her that you are well?” 

Will did not want to see the girl again.  He did not want to see anyone. 

But Lecter laid his hand on Will’s elbow, warm and solid, and there was such concern in his face that Will relented. 

“Very well,” he allowed.      

 Lecter smiled. “Come, then,” he said.  “Let us find you some food and drink and then we shall find your friend Lady Abigail.” 

There was no point in protest.  Will was finding that often the case with Lecter.  He seemed a man for whom the world parted.  If he desired it, it was done. 

And Will found that he could not hate Lecter for it.  No other man had thrown people out of his home for Will, or sought him out when he lost himself to panic. 

No other man had ever taken Will to their kitchen, shooed the servants away, and given him water and a small, delicious cake. 

“Thank you,” Will mumbled, feeling marginally more human.  “This is quite good, Doctor.” 

Lecter gave Will another half-smile.  “Thank you,” he said.  “It is an old family recipe.”

“You made this yourself?”

The doctor bowed.  “I enjoy cooking,” he said.  “I made most of tonight’s dishes, or oversaw their creation.”

Will blinked, thrown off yet again.  “That is,” he said, “incredible.”

Lecter’s pleasure was palpable.  “You flatter me, Commander.”

“Graham,” Will insisted.  Lecter had tended to his injuries and to his fear.  He had earned the right to call Will by his last name.

“Graham,” Lecter repeated.  “Come.  No doubt your young friend is still worried after you.”

Obligingly, Will followed Lecter back through the quiet half of the manor to the revelry. 

As if he sensed Will’s anxiety, Lecter walked at Will’s side, matching his pace, and he stood so tall and proud that Will could not help but stand taller himself.  

When they reentered the ballroom, a slight hush fell, but at Lecter’s look, steel and still calm, conversation resumed. 

But their eyes were on the two of them, and Will could feel the nervousness, and the reconsideration. 

Lecter’s stance at Will’s side could not be read as anything but support and good will. 

At the sight of him, Lady Abigail crossed the room, relief on her face, and installed herself quite firmly at Will’s other elbow. 

“Are you well?”  she asked, the very picture of concern.

Will was aware, in the back of his mind, of the absurdity of his current situation.  Renowned doctor at his right, Earl’s daughter on his left, being guarded by the two of them like he was some delicate lamb in the midst of wolves. 

“Well enough,” he said.  “My lady, you don’t have to worry about me.  I will be fine.”

Lady Abigail gave him a withering look, but her response was cut off by a couple coming before Doctor Lecter. 

Will recognized them vaguely—they were of Little Baltimore, but he could not recall their names. 

They involved themselves and Lecter received them grandly.  He said, “And this is Commander Will Graham, a friend.”

_Friend?_

Evidently, the couple was just as surprised as Will; the man said, “Friend?”  And then closed his mouth with a sharp click once he realized his rudeness.

Lecter smiled, and to Will it felt almost dangerous.  “Yes.”

The woman tittered nervously.  “So you have known each other long?”

“Only a few months,” said Lecter, still smiling.  “Commander Graham was one of the few who came to call on me, to welcome me to the downs. 

“How lovely,” the woman murmured, looking away.

“I also owe him my life,” Lecter continued, with the air of one making casual conversation but the feel of one making a very sharp point indeed. 

“How is that?”  the man asked, once again surprised into rudeness. 

“Really,” Will mumbled, “you do exaggerate.  You would have been alright.” 

Lecter looked at Will and his expression was the same as it had been in Will’s kitchen that night.  Will could see a faint pink scar, still healing, just under Lecter’s hair.  “Not at all,” he said, firmly.  “I was alone in the snow with no horse and an injury.” 

“Little Baltimore was not far,” Will argued, half-hearted. 

“And I did not know the way.  I fell from my horse during the storm a fortnight past,” Lecter explained.  “Had Commander Graham not found me and offered me his home, I would have been lost to the snow.”

Will wanted to say, _You ran me down._ He wanted to say, _I offered my home because I knew I could not refuse it, not out of kindness._ He wanted to say, _I hated you._

But he was not so socially blind as to misunderstand what Lecter was doing for him. 

Lecter was telling these people, who would immediately go and tell their friends, who would tell their own friends, and so on until the entire county would know that Will was Lecter’s guest and friend. 

_Are we friends, now?_ But Will bit his tongue and only bowed his head.  “You are too kind, Doctor,” he murmured. 

“Come,” Lady Abigail said suddenly, “my mother would very much like to meet such a kind and noble man.”  She took Will’s arm, curtseyed to the couple, and led Will across the ballroom.  Lecter followed. 

Will felt only baffled, and tired, but no longer angry and wild.  So long as Lecter stood beside him, he thought, he did not particularly need to go home. 

The Lady Hobbs was nowhere to be seen, but Sir Jack and Lady Bella were dancing again, and Bev had one hand tangled with about as she talked animatedly to Comtesse du Maurier. 

Both of his friend smiled when the saw Will. 

“It is good to see you are recovered,” the Comtesse said, politely.  “The ball would not be half so interesting without your company.”

Bemused but resigned to it, Will thanked her, and their party managed to pass a tolerable, even enjoyable hour. 

Alana and Bev took to Lady Abigail right away.  Bev asked Lady Abigail about her life and Lady Abigail asked half a hundred questions of America.  Lecter and Comtesse du Maurier had an odd, but familiar and easy relationship—they spoke of France fondly, of art and music and Lecter’s odd hobby, and Comtesse du Maurier regaled them with stories of a Lecter in London, and an even younger Lecter in Paris. 

“He was quite an unusual boy,” she said.  “Most of us had never seen anything like him.  He didn’t speak a word of French, but could still manage to talk his way out of trouble.”

“Did you get into much trouble, Doctor Lecter?”  Bev asked, eyes dancing.

“All I will say is that I was a very young man,” Lecter said, amused, “and that I rather thought myself invincible.  It was lovely Lady Bedelia who disabused me of that notion, and to this day I am grateful for it.”

“And your aunt,” Comtesse du Maurier said.  “She was the only one you ever listened to. Robertus tried to rein you in, but you would not heed him if you were aflame and he held a bucket of water.”

Some of the amusement left Lecter.  Will could feel its flight, though no one else seemed to notice.  Comtesse du Maurier’s eyes gleamed. 

“And my aunt,” Lecter said, tightly. 

“You had no parents?”  Lady Abigail asked.

“Doctor,” Will said, hoping Lady Abigail would forgive him his discourtesy.  “I think that young man is trying to reach you.”

Everyone turned.  There was a young man, a servant by his attire, trying to push his way through the dancers.  Panic was writ on his face.

“You are very perceptive,” Lecter murmured, only for Will to hear, and then straightened.  “Sir,” he said to the servant, hardly more than a boy.  “What is wrong?”

“Doctor Lecter,” the lad wheezed.  His fear was thick and heavy.  Instinctively, Will took a step closer to the doctor.  “Doctor Lecter, you must come quickly.  There’s been—there’s been an accident.  A terrible accident.”

The lad’s legs trembled, and his face seemed to collapse.  Will, recognizing the symptoms and perhaps feeling the impending faint himself, caught him as he fell. 

For such a young man he was surprisingly heavy.  Will grunted at the effort, lowering the man to the floor. 

He took a breath, and inhaled the scent of blood. 

“Oh, poor dear fainted,” Alana was saying, shooing away spectators.  “Drank too much, it looks like.”

Lecter crouched down beside Will, checking the boy’s pulse. 

“Something’s wrong,” Will said, teeth gritted.  “Lecter, something is wrong.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He smells of blood.”  Will could not forget that smell.  He had walked on decks socked with it, waded through blood up to his ankles.  Once, in London, the Runners had tracked a ripper through the streets.  They found his den in Piccadilly Circus, and the blood had been laid on the walls and the floor so deeply they had first thought it a coat of paint. 

Lecter leaned in and breathed; he pulled back and a blank professional sort of mask came down over his features.  “Bedelia,” he said, “would you and the ladies tend to this young man?  Graham and I will only be a moment.”

“Of course,” said the Comtesse.

Thus summoned, Will stood. 

“He is a coachman,” said Lecter.  “So what he has seen will be out of doors.  If you could bring Sir Jack, Commander.” 

Will nodded, and waded through the crowd to touch Sir Jack’s elbow.  “My lady,” he said to Lady Bella.  “If I may borrow your husband for a moment?” 

She nodded, and Sir Jack came. 

“What’s wrong?”  he asked.

Will shook his head and they rejoined Lecter.  Together, the three of them came through the ballroom and out onto the grounds.  The air was cold and the wind howling; it would snow again tonight, Will could feel it. 

The front lawn still bustled with carriages and carts coming and going, people moving to and fro, still happy.  The lane blazed with firelight. 

Lecter took them around the side of the manor, where it was darker and less densely populated.  The occasional servant still bowed, and faint light shone from within the house and through its many doors and windows.  The woods were so black they seemed another world entirely, like the edge of the very deep sea, all wildness. 

An indescribable feeling came over Will.  It felt like claws and sour wind.  Terror and ecstacy.  His tongue was thick in his mouth and he wanted to stop, to tell Lecter and Sir Jack that he was afraid, but he could not. Something in the woods was stirring, antlers moving among the branches. 

Will had left his coat inside and could not guard against the chill. 

A mounting sense of dread choked him as they rounded the last corner of the manor.  Here there were few windows and only one door, and Lecter had not lit the back of the house.  The woods were closer here than they were on the other three sides, and the darkness was absolute, broken only by the very faint orange glow from the front lane and the light of the moon. 

Will tried to make sense of the blackness, trying to see what the panicked young valet had seen, but could not. 

It was Lecter who said, suddenly, “There.”  His voice was soft and hushed, but to Will it sounded like a gunshot. 

He followed Lecter’s line of sight, and closed his eyes.  Sir Jack swore violently. 

A girl lay just at the edge of the woods, twenty paces from the house.  Her dress marked her as a maid.  The scent of blood hung in the air. 

Will, as if pulled, went to her.  He felt Lecter and Sir Jack behind him, but they were a great distance away.  There were mountains and seas between them.  Will was on an island, and he was alone but for the girl, who was dead and cold, and the man who killed her, who was alive and cold. 

He knelt next to the girl.  Her chest and belly were punctured. Later Will would know that she had been mounted on a pair of antlers, pierced through, but for now he took her hand and closed her white, glassy eyes. 

She had not been dead long.  Her flesh was cool, made cooler by the winter air, but she had not yet gone stiff and rigid.  Will tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, guided by some instinct he could not name. 

“My god,” said Sir Jack, dully. 

“What is it?”  Lecter’s voice was heavy with worry. 

Will did not look up from the dead girl’s face.  She looked familiar.  “It’s the Shrike,” he said, and finally looked away from the girl’s face, up at Sir Jack.  “The Shrike has crossed the Downs.”


	4. east sussex, 15 december, 1816

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Why are you updating this, out of all of the hundred thousand other projects you have going on?" says my brain, baffled. "you've only watched _pride & prejudice_ three times in the last three weeks, this can't possibly be affecting you that much."

learn and learn again 

 

The aftermath of his discovery left Will feeling dirty and trapped in his skin.  Lecter, of course, ended the ball at once.  He left Will and Sir Jack alone for only a few minutes--though to Will, whose skull had been ringing and his sense of time struck down, Lecter's absence seemed one of hours--to politely dismiss his guests and invite them to take home which ever delicacies or drinks they'd like, and then he returned with a sheet for the poor murdered girl and a stiff brandy for Will. 

"To steady your nerves," the doctor explained.  Will mumbled his thanks and drank the brandy down.  It did little to still his trembling hands but much to restore his sense of self; he was able to blink and shed the girl's terror. 

"My steward is assembling the servants as we speak," Lecter told Sir Jack.  "We will know who this girl was soon enough."

Sir Jack helped Lecter drape the sheet over the girl's body.  Once she was covered, Will could look again.  He had seen much death over the years, and was used to it.  As long as he did not have to look at the gore, he could keep his head about him. 

"What made you name the Shrike?"  Sir Jack demanded, rounding on Will.  "He has never crossed the Downs; he does his butcher's work in Kent.  I had thought he might _attend_ this evening, but to commit a murder--"

"It is the Shrike," said Will.  He did not know how he knew, but he did.  With more conviction, he said, "Name another killer who takes the internal organs of his victims."  This girl was missing her lungs.  The Shrike's first victims had been missing livers and kidneys; the more recent victims had all but vanished, only a few spots of blood left to tell the world of their passing.

"She's missing organs?"

Will nodded. 

"If I may," said Lecter, "I can examine the body and confirm Commander Graham's theory?  I confess that I am unfamiliar with this Shrike."

Will blinked.  He had forgotten, over the course of the long evening, that Lecter was a medical doctor. 

And Sir Jack evidently trusted him, because he stood aside and said, "If you would, Lecter, I would be indebted."

Once, Sir Jack had trusted Will's perception implicitly.  Not any longer, it would seem, though Will could not blame him. 

Lecter took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and set about his work.  He had returned from the manor with a lamp, which he stood upright beside him.  The flickering light threw the corpse into sharp relief; the slick, dark cavity where the girl's lungs had been stood out in nightmarish clarity.  Once again, Will looked away. 

"Her lungs are indeed missing," Lecter confirmed.  "Removed rather neatly, too, like one would disembowel a deer.  The heart he left behind."

"Good God," said Sir Jack.  He looked at Will. "You're right.  It is the Shrike."

After that, the night was a long, drawn-out blur.  The steward came and told his master that the dead maid was named Cassie Boyle.  Sir Jack insisted that Will stay at the manor and rushed off to pen a letter to the town constables.  Lecter, perhaps sensing Will's confusion and exhaustion, stowed him away in the kitchen with a cup of tea and more brandy before leaving to attend to Cassie Boyle's affairs.

Will, as a rule, did not overindulge in spirits.  For a time as a young man liquor quieted his nightmares and dulled his perception.  But the more he relied on drink, the harder it became to perform his duties, and the more he had to drink in order to keep his nightmares at bay.  Finally, after his Captain threatened to maroon him on Nevis, Will abandoned drink entirely. 

Lecter's brandy warms him, though, banishes the December chill and the horror from his fingertips.  Will wants to go home. 

But he knows Sir Jack, and nothing rouses his anger so much as evil walking boldly before him.  The Shrike had previously restrained his activities to Kent, outside of even Sir Jack's considerable reach.  But now he had crossed into the Downs, past Quantico Manor into the heart of East Sussex, and killed a girl at a holiday ball. 

Sir Jack will want his head. 

And he will ask Will to help him get it.  Will owed Sir Jack too much to deny him now, with a young girl's blood drying on his shoes. 

Will finished his tea, took another fortifying sip of brandy, and stood. 

He needed to see the girl again. 

Will rose from his seat and went back into the manor proper.  The halls were deathly silent.  By now all of the revelers had been sent home, the servants dismissed out of the way.  Will followed a trail of melting snow and drops of blood through the halls.  They had brought the girl indoors. 

He found Cassie Boyle laid, for lack of a better place to put her, on the cold stone floor of an unfinished room.  She is again covered by a sheet, made small and fragile by death, and Will approached her warily, irrationally half-convinced she would leap up and bite.

"Cassie Boyle," he murmured, and pulled the sheet back.  She was not an unpretty girl.  Her face was naturally pale, made nearly blue by death, her hair black, her features fine and feminine.  She looked rather like Lady Abigail, in actuality.  The thought did not sit well with Will, so he shied from it and focused on the task at hand. 

He took a deep breath, opened his perception, and let go of himself. 

It was harder for Will to step into the body of a man who was not physically present, but brutality was a language that was easy for Will to translate.  When he opened his eyes, he was another man, and the girl beneath him was alive once more. 

Will looked down at her dispassionately.  Cold contempt settled itself across his shoulders.  

"Your rudeness," he told the girl, for that had been her sin, "strips you of the right to a clean death."

The girl scrambled backwards, eyes cast down.  "Please," she must have begged, but the creature Will had become would have paid her little heed.

He advanced on h er.  The knife he held was a familiar weight; he knew how to carry it, how to cut to wound, to inflict pain.  _To teach a lesson._

It was not hatred he felt for Cassie Boyle.  It was disdain.  Disregard.  She was nothing to him but a stain to scrub out of the floor, a --

Will's mind skirted around this deeper understanding, unwilling to bear it. 

"I think," he said, fitting the words carefully in his mouth, "that I shall take your lungs."   He brought the knife down. 

“Commander?”  A soft voice startled Will back into his own skin.  He blinked; once again Cassie Boyle was dead on the floor and he was Will Graham.  His skin was clammy.  His hands shook. 

Lecter was watching Will from a distance, his eyes turned nearly black by the dim light.  When Will forced himself to relax, Lecter closed the space between them and touched Will’s elbow with some caution.  “Are you well?”  he asked.  “What are you doing?”

Will shot him an exhausted glance.  His tongue was heavy in his mouth.  Lecter must have known about Will’s… peculiarities.  He must.  “What do you know about me, Lecter?” 

Lecter was silent for a handful of moments.  Then he said, “I have heard of you, in London.  Rumors of your unique state of mind.”

Will snorted.  “That is perhaps the politest way to call me insane that I’ve ever heard.”

“I do not think you insane,” Lecter objected, immediately and with considerable force.  “I have met the insane, Graham, and you are not that.”

“I—”

“Do you rave?”  Lecter asked.  His features were again unreadable. 

“I’m sorry?”  Will did not know how to respond.  Lecter had—again, confound him—defied Will’s expectations and left him floundering. 

“Do you rave?  Are you insensate?” 

“No,” Will said. 

“Do you know where you are?”

“Yes.”

“Who you are?”

“Yes,” said Will again, frustrated now.  “But I have not always known.”  He had inhabited a killer’s skin so completely that Commander Will Graham had ceased to exist; the man he was now was a different man, a wounded man.  It had taken years to piece himself together again and he was still missing parts of himself.  He still woke in terror, believing he had lost himself to bloodlust and hunger.  He still walked in his sleep.  He still thought of flesh parting beneath his fingernails, his teeth, and he _wanted._

Shadows swarmed at the door, but did not dare cross Lecter, who only waved his hand.  “I believe insanity to be an ill of the mind, like a fever is an ill of the body,” he said.  “In some cases a fever cannot be cured, and the body perishes.  But in many cases—in your case—it can be cured, and the body is once again whole.  Do you call a man who has recovered from fever a plague victim?”

“Well, no,” said Will, though he did not necessarily agree. 

Lecter, however, seemed satisfied.  “Know at least that I believe you to be perfectly sane,” he said, and a strange sort of warmth stole over Will, filled him up and settled into his bones. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, because he could not think of anything else to say. 

Lecter bowed his head, ever gracious.  “I have heard of you,” he continued, “and admired your talent for finding murderers and the like, but I confess that I do not understand how you do it.”

“No one does,” said Will.  “I do not, not wholly.”

“Could you describe it?”

Will hesitated. 

“Of course,” Lecter said quickly, “if you do not wish to try, you do not have to.  I do not mean to interrogate you, Graham.  I am only curious.  A flaw of mine, I’m afraid.”

_He means no harm,_ Will told himself forcefully.  _And he has been kind and courteous to a fault.  He has offered his hand in friendship when others of his rank took theirs away, and did so without being asked._

But he could not force himself to confide in Lecter.  A lifetime of secrecy forbade it.  He only shrugged, ducking his head, and looked away. 

“No matter,” said Lecter bracingly.  “Perhaps some other time?”

Will could at least give Lecter this, in return for his kindness at the ball, so he nodded. 

Lecter smiled.  “Good.  Now, what did you learn of the unfortunate Miss Boyle?”

“Nothing of her, I hope,” said Sir Jack, striding into the room.  The shadows fled at the sight of him, and Will allowed himself to relax completely.  Despite the late hour, Sir Jack blazed with an angry energy.  Will stood taller out of habit, stance spread, at attention.  “And much about her killer.  Well, Graham?”

“I do not know the Shrike beyond what you have told me,” Will cautioned.  _And beyond what gossip Bev and Alana bring._ But Miss Boyle’s death was the work of a creature comfortable with killing, and Will knew of no other murderers in East Sussex. 

Sir Jack held Will’s gaze.  “What did you see, Graham?”

“This killer, the Shrike, he does not kill—or at least, did not kill Miss Boyle—out of anger.  He is not outwardly insane.  It is not hatred that drives him, not a raving madness.  He is—in control.  Always in control.  He corned Miss Boyle where he knew no one would find them.  He is at ease with a knife.”

“But _why_ did he kill the girl?  Why here?  Why now?”

“He—” Will thought of the Shrike’s contempt, his calm.  “He believed her beneath him,” he said.  “He believed it was his right to take her life.  He is without remorse.  He—”

His vision blurs.  Will must shiver, because Lecter’s hand is suddenly at his back, the heat of it blazing through the layers of his uniform. 

For the third time that night, Will was grateful for Lecter’s steady presence. 

“He thinks of people as though they are no better than pigs,” he said, coming to understand what his mind had shied from before.  “Pigs ripe for the slaughter.”

* * *

 

 At daybreak, Will returned to Wolf Trap.  He begged a need to feed his hounds and to sleep, and must have looked like he was barely a step above death himself, because Sir Jack relented and dismissed him from Black Stag.  Lecter sent Will home on horseback, waving Will’s protests aside with promises to collect his horse at a later date and a recommendation for herbal tea, to soothe Will’s nerves and ease him asleep. 

The dogs were beside themselves with worry.  It was a rare event that Will left them to themselves overnight.  He cleared them out of the barn, greeting each hound individually, and quartered the horse where it would not be bothered. 

He slept three hours with the dogs curled around him.  Winston rested his head on Will’s belly and Buster sprawled across his knees. 

His sleep was shallow and nightmarish.  Will awoke in a cold sweat to knocking at his door.  Worried it was Sir Jack and Lecter, he blinked the image of Cassie Boyle mounted on a great stag’s head from his eyes and tugged on new clothes, flattened his hair, and returned his uniform to his wardrobe. 

“Apologies for the wait,” he said, opening his front door, and found Beverly and a constable uneasily sharing his stoop.  “Miss Katz,” he murmured.  “Sir Constable.”

“Commander,” Bev returned, and curtseyed. 

At Will’s rank the constable startled and bowed, more out of habit than actual respect. 

Will eyed Bev, who smiled slyly. 

“Come in,” he said, and stood aside.  “Come in, please.  Don’t mind the hounds.”  Will let Bev and the constable in, guiding them to his sitting room.  He shooed all of the dogs but Winston outside, put some tea on, and returned to his guests. 

The sudden appearance of a policeman into his house made Will uneasy.  Aside from Sir Jack and now Doctor Lecter, no one in East Sussex knew precisely what had brought Will to their sleepy county.  To them he was odd, his habits queer, and a number of them had guessed, either from his manner or his tendency to mutter to himself, enough to call him “Mad Graham,” but no one really knew him. 

It was a level of anonymity that Will very much liked, because it kept strangers from his lands and policemen from his doorstep. 

He had not once during his tenancy in Wolf Trap been visited by a town constable before today.  Will knew that it had to do with the murdered girl and Black Stag and not at all with him or his past, but discomfort pricked at his skin and his legs ached to run anyway. 

Will forced himself to be still.  “To what do I owe the pleasure?”  He asked, directing the question at Bev. 

Bev searched Will’s face for a long moment.  “Missus Bloom and I did not see you after the ball,” she finally said.  “In all the excitement and confusion, we lost you in the crowd.  I wanted to make sure you were alright, and that you had made it home safely.”

“I am alright,” Will assured her, though he knew he did not look it.  He attempted to smile and resisted the powerful urge to check beneath his fingernails for blood.  “Doctor Lecter loaned me a horse.  I returned this morning.  Are you and Ala—Missus Bloom well?”

Bev returned Will’s hesitant smile.  “We are,” she said. “Alana stayed with me last night.  I sent her home this morning.” 

“Good,” said Will.  He turned his attention to the constable.  He had much to tell Bev, but now was not the time.  “And you, sir?  What is your business?”

“Sir Jack sent me to fetch you, sir,” the constable said, and had the decency to look apologetic.  “He requests your presence at Quantico this evening.”  The way the constable phrased this missive made it clear to Will that Sir Jack’s request was not a request at all.

“He also bid me to deliver this.”  The constable produced a letter, addressed to Will on heavy white parchment and sealed with blue wax.  “He asks that if you have any new, er, insights, that you send him a letter back with me.” 

Will took the letter and tucked it into his breast pocket.  “Sir,” he said.  “I will be at Quantico at half-seven.  Are you returning to Black Stag?”

The constable nodded. 

“If you would wait a moment?”  At the constable’s grudging agreement, Will hastily penned a letter to Sir Jack advising him to look for antlers that the girl might have been pierced with and another to Lecter, promising to return the horse on the morrow, and sent the constable on his way. 

“Not a bloody postman,” he heard the constable grumble, but the man went anyway, bowing and offering a short, “Commander,” as he left. 

“Will,” said Bev, once he had gone, “pardon my language, but what the hell is going on?  Doctor Lecter ended the ball and sent us all home before it was even midnight.  The servants were in an uproar.  We couldn’t find you.”

“I was with Sir Jack and Lecter,” admitted Will.  He paused.  The whole county would know of the murder by dawn tomorrow; he assumed that the news would be in the evening post, and word would spread very quickly. 

“There was a murder,” he said.  Bev sat straight up, nearly dislodging her tea.

“A murder?”

  Will nodded.  “One of the maids,” he said.  “A coachman found her.  We—Sir Jack, Lecter, and I—examined her body.  Lecter sent everyone away because he did not want to make a murder a spectacle.”

“God be good,” Bev breathed.  Then, “Was it the Shrike?”

“Yes,” said Will, because he knew there was no reason to lie.  “We believe, anyway.  She was—” And he stopped.  He did not know how to tell Bev of the killer’s contempt, the icy depths of his disdain for another person’s life.  Such evil—so great and incompressible it went beyond even the word _evil_ and adopted the characteristics of a great ravening beast or a hurricane made flesh—was not something he knew how to describe.  He should not even try, anyway; Bev was his friend; she should be spared the horrors that lived in his mind. 

“God,” Bev repeated.  “Will, I—”

He held up a hand, sensing platitudes.  “I am alright,” he said.  Bev knew that he used to be a policeman of sorts.  He had seen worse.  “Tired, I think, and concerned, but alright.”

Bev looked at him, hard, and said, “If you don’t want to get involved, Will, don’t.  You do not owe anyone anything.”

“I owe Sir Jack a great deal,” Will retorted.  _More than you will ever know._ “And last night Lecter offered me his friendship.”  _His protection._ “I owe him my assistance.”

Bev appeared for a moment as though she would argue, but Will said, quickly, “I _want_ to help.  If the Shrike has crossed into the Downs at last, no one is safe.”

Though her face pinched like she was unhappy, Bev finally nodded.  “Will the Shrike risk Sir Jack’s retribution and hunt here again?”

“Yes,” said Will, and meant it.  He knew it.  Men like the Shrike—beasts in human skin—knew no caution.  No restraint.  The Shrike would continue to taunt Sir Jack until he was caught.  “And Bev, no more walking to Wolf Trap alone, please?  Don’t go anywhere alone.  It’s not safe.” 

Instead of arguing, this time Bev agreed.  “I don’t want Alana to be alone either,” she said.  “Not if—not if there’s someone out there who could do her harm.  Alana lets a cottage in the village for her practice.  Perhaps we will both stay there for a time.”

Will relaxed.  He did not think even the Shrike so bold as to venture into New Baltimore.  “Take one of the hounds,” he said.  “Hell, take two.  They’ll watch over you.  None of them are true fighters, but they will at least make noise, and some of the braver will go after a man.”

Bev agreed to that too without much fuss; she did love his dogs, and she saw the sense in their protection.  I“t seemed that Bev would be reckless with her own safety, but not with Alana's.  Will was glad, and told Bev so.  She laughed at him and finished her tea, making small talk about the rest of the ball. 

As she stood to leave, she handed him another letter, this one sealed with green wax.  “From the Lady Abigail,” Bev said, some good humor returning to her face.  “You made quite an impression on her, I think.”

“Stop,” Will told her sternly, ears burning.  He took the letter anyway.  Bev laughed and kissed his check.  She departed with two of Will’s pack, the collie Louise and the bruiser mutt Eddy, at her heels. 

Will held the letter for a moment.  He had liked Lady Abigail, very much.  She was a sweet girl.  Clever, he thought, if lonely.  And pretty too, but Will was twice her age and half her rank and besides, he’d never much wanted to marry _anyone._ She had been kind to him, that was all.  That was why he was feeling this way, so unreasonably affectionate, almost giddy that she’d written to him. 

“Rather pathetic, Graham,” he told himself, and set the letter down on his side table.  It was just past noon.  He would not have to leave for Quantico for another several hours.  Rather than read the letter and torment himself, Will returned to his bed, gathered his dogs around him, and went back to sleep.

* * *

 

The horse did not seem to mind being pressed back into service again so soon, so at six Will climbed onto the beast and set out to the east and Quantico Manor.  The sky opened up above him, a map of stars, and the hills rolled and rose like dark waves.  If it were not for the nature of his meeting with Sir Jack, Will would almost be at peace. 

As it was, a grim sort of focus stole over him.  The hills he could imagine as waves and the rocking of the horse he could imagine as the motion of a ship beneath him, and so it came to be that he found himself again.  His fear and confusion faded.  The sense of another man beneath his skin bled away.  Purpose emerged from his clouded thoughts.

Will had been a good sailor once, and a good policeman after that.  The madness had knocked him down and all his life he had been afraid of himself, of his odd ability, but he had been at the top of his profession, once.  He had been diligent and hard-working and respected.  Feared and mistrusted, but respected.  Commended, even. 

He could be that again. 

Feeling more calm and in control of himself than he had in years, Will approached Quantico Manor. 

Sir Jack’s estate was large and sprawling; he lacked the woods that surrounded other estates, but he had hills and heather, and a lovely stretch of river.  Will had fished there many times over the years.  The manor itself was perched atop a broad hill like a castle of old, looking down over the fields and the water like an old lion surveyed its domain. 

Quantico Manor and Sir Jack were well-suited to each other.

It was just past seven when Will arrived.  One of the stable boys took the horse without comment and Will was guided into the manor by a shrewd old steward who had never liked Will, not even during his days as a Runner, and then told to wait for a moment for his host.

While he waited, Will opened Sir Jack’s letter again and looked over its contents. 

The letter contained everything Sir Jack had thought to pen down about the Shrike.  His murders—nine, with Cassie Boyle’s death—and his usual hunting grounds, the state of the bodies afterwards, how often he struck.  The more Will learned about him, the more confused he became. 

"Will,” said Sir Jack, striding down the hall to greet his guest.  “Glad you could make it.  Doctor Lecter is waiting for us in the study.”

“Doctor Lecter is here?”

Sir Jack shot Will an inscrutable look.  “Is that a problem?  I know you dislike society, Will, but you and Lecter seemed to get on well enough last night.”

“No,” said Will, and was surprised to find that it was not a problem at all.  Two days ago he dreaded Lecter’s company.  Two months ago he would have happily seen the man driven out of East Sussex by an armed mob.  Now when he examined his feelings for the man, he felt nothing but respect, perhaps even the beginnings of warm regard. 

_Are you so quick to attach yourself to anyone that gives you the slightest bit of affection?_ Will thought, but there was no helping it now.  Lecter had done Will a tremendous kindness.  He had proved himself to be a true gentleman.  Will was ill-mannered at the best of times, but even he knew that Lecter had, at the very least, not deserved his previous dislike. 

Sir Jack raised his eyebrows.  “Well,” said he, “good. I have asked Lecter to assist us for the duration of the case.”

“Us?”  said Will, dry. 

The old policeman said nothing, only led Will to his study.  Sir Jack presumed much, but then he always had.  Will did not argue. 

Lecter was waiting for them, posted up by the window, watching the fields.  He looked up when Sir Jack and Will entered.  The corners of his eyes creased. 

“Graham,” he said, inclining his head. 

“Lecter,” Will returned. 

“You look well.  How are you feeling?  Last night was taxing for all of us.”

“I am fine,” Will said.  “Thank you.  And you, sir?”

“Well enough, under the circumstances.” Will was sure that Lecter had gotten no more sleep than he, but whereas Will looked haggard and unkempt, Lecter was as presentable as Will had ever seen him.  Not even a hair of Lecter’s was out of place.  In contrast to Will’s pale tiredness and Sir Jack’s drawn countenance, Lecter cut a handsome figure indeed.

_Inappropriate,_ Will scolded himself, embarrassed and alarmed, and prayed that his ears were not burning.  It was not his habit to find men handsome, let alone a wealthy gentleman, whose ilk Will had despised since childhood. 

It was, however, unfortunately like Will to latch on to those few who showed him kindness and respect.  _Lecter is not courting you, you desperate fool,_ he told himself viciously.  _He is only being courteous.  Nothing more._

Neither Sir Jack nor Lecter seemed to notice Will’s embarrassment.

“—read my letter?”  Sir Jack was saying.  Will blinked and shook himself out of his thoughts. 

“Yes,” Will said, producing the letter from his pocket.  He had not worked up the courage to read Lady Abigail’s, but he’d suspected, and correctly too, that Sir Jack would bring him into his confidence regarding the Shrike as quickly and as fully as possible.  

His letter had contained nearly everything Sir Jack knew about “the Shrike of Kent.”  The names of his victims, the methods of killing, the back roads and quiet woods where pretty dark-haired girls met their ends. 

Will had not learned much from the letter.  The Shrike’s victims were all servants; barmaids, housekeepers, sewing girls.  The Shrike could be a poor man preying among those he knew, or a rich man hunting those below his station. 

His choice of quiet, secluded places to do his work—with the exception of Lecter’s manor—indicated that he was a fairly intelligent man.  His murder at the ball painted him as a bold one.  His ease with a knife could name him as a tradesman or a hunter or anyone at all. 

Will told Sir Jack as much.  “His method of killing lends little insight into his identity,” he explained.  “This Shrike could be anyone at all.”

“Anyone?”  Lecter’s eyebrows rose disbelievingly.  “Surely his skill with a knife gives something away.” 

“Not at all,” said Will.  “You yourself are adept with a knife, are you not?  As is Sir Jack, an avid hunter.  As am I, a seasoned sailor.”

Sir Jack frowned.  “So that’s it, then?  There is nothing to be gained or learned?”

Will shrugged.  “You know what I can do is not precise, sir.  It is not exact or certain.  I have but one murder to fork from—it is harder for me to get a sense of a man from words on a page.  We have one body only; that is what I can tell you.”

Sir Jack swore. 

“I am confused,” said Lecter.  “The Shrike is prolific, is he not?  Where are the bodies of his victims?” 

“The last three victims of the Shrike were never found,” Sir Jack growled.  “There were bloodstains in the woods.  The torn chemise of one girl was found in the mud, as was the necklace and hair of another, but their bodies were never recovered.”

“And the others?”

“Buried, I presume,” Will said, looking at Sir Jack for conformation.  The old knight nodded.

“Could we have them exhumed?”  Exhumation was a common enough practice in London.  Almost always disliked, but it was done.  Out here in the country, however, Will knew that superstition ran deep.  No one would consent to their wife or sister or daughter being dug up from their blessed rest, not even to catch their loved one’s killer.  He said as much, and Lecter subsided, frowning still. 

“I could order an exhumation,” Sir Jack said heavily.  “But I would prefer not to burn up any more of the peoples’ good will than we have to.  This will not be an easy hunt, gentlemen.”

“If you cannot get a clear picture of the Shrike,” Lecter said, turning his peculiar gaze on Will, “then how to you know if any of these murders are the Shrike’s?  Are there no thieves in Kent?”

Something stirred in the back of Will’s mind, a dry rustle of wind through fur.  He frowned.  “The method gives the Shrike away,” he said at last.  “Thieves will leave their victims behind; dead bodies are cumbersome to carry, and a sure sign of guilt.  The Shrike left his earliest victims—less and less of them as he became surer of himself—but except for Cassie Boyle, he does not leave them anymore.”

“What is he doing with them?”  Sir Jack wondered aloud.  “There is not a black market for organs and bodies here in the south, not like there is in town.  Is he burying them himself?  Is he—?”

A shadow blinded will, slammed into him with the force of a gale, and he was helpless before it.  All sense of self abandoned him; he was in the woods and there was a girl before him, a knife in his hand, and hunger in his belly, hunger and rage and pain and grief, the keenest, sharpest sense of loss, and he could only fill the hole inside himself if he consumed this girl, if he took every part of her inside himself and kept her there, safe within him forever—

Beside Will, a great stag was walking, the wind ruffling his fur, the moon gleaming off the polished darkness of his antlers. 

When Will returned to himself he was on the floor, gasping.  Lecter was crouched above him, one cool hand on Will’s fluttering pulse, the other cradling the back of his skull.  Sir Jack stood over them both, expression inscrutable. 

“What did you see?”  he finally asked.

Will took a steadying breath and sat up.  Lecter supported him, a broad and implacable weight.  He did not recoil from this display of Will’s ability, and gratitude shot through Will like an arrow.  Will swallowed.  Bile churned in his gut.  “The Shrike is—” He stopped and forced himself to be calm.  “The Shrike is eating them,” he said.  “He’s eating them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @panarcher.tumblr.com come bully me into finishing everything i've let languish while organic chemistry kicked my ass this year.


	5. east sussex, 16 december 1816

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep hammering out more of this when I need to be doing other things, IDK. Welcome to regency hell, I guess.

learn and learn again

 

 _A cannibal._ Will reeled.  Such savagery had not in existed in England for nigh on fifteen hundred years. To think that such a creature walked among them--dined with them, danced with them--made the edges of Will's vision go grey.   

His insight was met with grave silence.   

"A man-eater," Sir Jack finally pronounced, and all three men knew it to be true.  A cannibal walked among them.  

"Well then," said Lecter, still bearing half of Will's weight, "we must endeavor to catch this man swiftly."  His calm certainty allowed Will to pull some of his own composure back from where it had fled. 

"And we will," he said.  A sense of purpose kindled in Will's spine, helped him take to his feet and shake off the Shrike's yawning hunger.   

"A warning should be issued to all dark-haired women in the county," said Will.  "Both in Kent and in the Downs. The emptiness inside the Shrike is only growing--he is not sated, and will not be until death."  

"Only dark-haired women?"  Sir Jack frowned.   

"Are his tastes so singular?"  Lecter added, and grimaced.  His eyes shone.   

"Yes," said Will, certain.  He could see it in his mind's eye.  "It is like a hunter who only kills great stags.  There are many other beasts to tempt him, does and foxes, game birds and wolves, but he will only hunt the stag.  Nothing else will satisfy him.:" 

"Why?"  asked Sir Jack, and this time Will knew the answer.  

"The Shrike is killing these girls because there is one girl he cannot kill," Will said.  One girl, whose life the Shrike could not take.  He wanted her--oh, how he wanted her, a want that was all-consuming, ravenous, wild and full of teeth--but he could not, or would not, have her.  So he consumed others in her stead.  "She is dead, perhaps, or otherwise inaccessible to him.  He cannot reach her."  

"Does he love her?"  Lecter wondered.  he had not removed his hand from Will's shoulder, not even now as Will stood under his own power, and Will found that he did not want him to.  There was a horror in his head.  He did not want to stand alone.   

"Or he hates her," Will murmured.   

"I will alert the constabulary.  This situation requires delicacy," said Sir Jack.  "My lady has been bored of late, here in our country estate; she will do her best to marshal the countryside, and keep them calm and orderly."  

His grim work done for the night, Will accepted a cup of tea from Sir Jack and room in the manor.  Lecter pled urgent business and returned to his own home.  Will found that he missed the weight of Lecter's hand, and deliberately turned his mind aside.   

A shadowy image of the Shrike had begun to take shape in all of their minds.  A true hunter, intent on his prey, a wilderness in human flesh.  A cannibal was a beast.  A monstrosity.  Will's neighbors though him mad and his worst crime--that they knew of--was an ill temper.  The Shrike could not hide his true nature from everyone forever.  Someone had noticed him, or would soon.  

This was a waiting game.  Will Graham was merely a passable hunter, but he was an excellent fisherman.  He could be patient.  He could wait.  

And then he would catch this Shrike, and end him, and perhaps then his creeping bloodlust would be satisfied.  Perhaps then he could go back to his hedges and his dogs.  A wishful thought, but Will held onto it, and at last fell into an uneasy sleep.  

* * *

 In Sir Jack's house, Will dreamed of Doctor Lecter.  

They were standing in Lecter's great ballroom.  Will's hands were red with blood.  Shadows and stags danced feverishly all around them, and when Lecter said his name Will snarled and raised a bloody hand.  

Lecter caught it, his own palms warm and rough.  He brought Will's hand to his lips.  He kissed each knuckle, each fingertip, and then he sucked Will's forefinger into his mouth and licked it clean of blood.   

When he looked up at Will, his eyes were black all through.  

* * *

 Will awoke hard.   

For the first few moments, he did not understand.  He had not woken up this way since he was a young man.  His nightmares usually left little room for this sort of dream; usually he woke panting and sweating with fear, not arousal.   

Then Will remembered where he was and rolled over into his borrowed bed, where he stayed until he had willed himself back under control.  Embarrassment nearly overrode his lingering horror.   

 _You are not a child,_ he scolded himself.  Finally he was able to rise again without shame.  He splashed cold water on his face, arranged his clothes, and slunk out of his room to the front of the house.   

Sir Jack's household was still asleep.  Will helped himself to a hard biscuit and left a note for Sir Jack on his desk in his office.  Then he went out to the stables and collected his horse.   

A heavy mist hung over the hills, threatening snow.  Cold froze the breath in Will's lungs.  His journey home was uninterrupted; not even the postman seemed to want to brave the cold to deliver the mail.   

At Wolf Trap, the dogs barked and snigged Will over from head to toe.  The mists did not dissipate with the rising sun, but the air warmed a bit, allowing Will to tend to his lands and make sure his house was well-guarded against winter's chill.  

Finally, after noon, Will ran out of reasons to continue ignoring Lady Abigail's letter, and opened it.   

The seal gave easily beneath his fingers.   

 _Dear Commander Graham,_ it read.   

 _I hope you will forgive me for opening up this communication between us.  My new friends Mrs. Bloom and Ms. Katz tell me that you are a reserved man who seldom maintains contact with anyone.  If my letter causes unspeakable offence to you, I beg you to banish it from your thoughts and to with_ _h_ _old_ _your response; I shall never write you again, unless you should wish it._  

Will smiled despite himself.  Abigail Hobbs, he thought, was teasing him.  

 _If however you are pleased by this letter and wish to continue our acquaintance, I entreat you to read further and respond at your leisure._  

 _I want to thank you for your kindness at Dr. Lecter's ball.  I do not make friendly connections easily and I am a poor dancer.  On both counts you extended your good manners and light feet and allowed me to make a delightful acquaintance, one I dearly hope you will cons_ _ent to continue._  

 _I would also like to extend grati_ _tud_ _e_ _on the behalf of my mother, who worries about the state of my friendships, and on behalf of my honorable father.  With all of the unspeakable evil in the world at present, he is grateful for_ _my_ _company_ _with_ _a military man._  

 _To offer their gratitude to you in person, my father wishes to invite you to dine with us this Saturday next; a letter from him should be arriving shortly._  

 _For my part, I entreat you to accept, both so that I may express my own gratitude properly and so that we might continue our acquaintance._  

 _If_ _it_ _would be amenable to you, you may bring your hounds and stay with us for a day or two; my father's grounds are well-stocked in all manner of game, and there is no pleasure he enjoys so keenly as that of the hunt.  I, of course, would love to meet your hounds.  My father does not keep any and I admit I have a dreadful weakness for them._  

 _I hope this letter finds you in good health,_  

 _Yours most respectfully,_  

- _L. Abigail Hobbs_  

Will set the letter down carefully, keenly aware of his burning cheeks.   

He had never received such a letter.  

There had been friends who had written to him, of course, one suitor long ago, but never had he received a letter quite like that.   

Lady Abigail did not mean it as a flirtation.  Of that Will was sure.  She meant to engage him in friendly conversation.  He could taste the honesty in her inked words.  Perhaps it was because of his dreams last night, but he could not help but feel warm at her entreaties of friendship.  

Will hesitated.  He should not encourage this attachment.  He should not engage with Lady Abigail.  She was so far beyond his station he could only glimpse her as an island through the waves.  What fruit could their friendship bear? 

But something deep within Will violently rebelled at the idea of turning her aside.   

He wanted Abigail Hobbs to be a part of his life.  Will's circle of acquaintances was so few--Alana and Bev, Sir Jack, perhaps now Doctor Lecter--and while Will was accustomed to loneliness, he did not prefer it.  He chose it, for the safety of others, but surely with Sir Jack and Lecter nearby he could not harm Lady Abigail.  He only wanted to talk to her, after all.  To know her.  

Before he could talk himself out of it, Will penned a response, assuring Lady Abigail that her letter was most welcome and that he wished to continue their acquaintance as strongly as she did.  He wrote that he would be honored to dine with her family.  As soon as he had done so, he had to fight off crippling waves of panic; he could not imagine himself in the Earl's home, dining at his table, holding conversation with the man and his wife and his daughter.   

At best, Will would be awkward and clumsy, lacking social grace and poise, recalcitrant and unlikeable.  At worst, he could slip again, fall into another man's skin, and feed, and feed-- 

Winston laid his head on Will's knee and whined, softly.  Will dragged his fingers through the dog's fur, forcing himself to be calm.  He would post his letter on the morrow, so as not to offend Lady Abigail, and then when the day of Lord Hobbs' dinner came, he would simply send another letter with the express begging illness.  He and Lady Abigail could continue to cultivate their friendship through letters alone.  Perhaps there would be another ball, but it would be best--for both of them, lowly old sailor and lonely young heiress--if they maintained a proper distance from each other.  

Lady Abigail did not deserve the whispers that would come should she be seen too often with Mad Graham, and Will for his part certainly did not need the scrutiny and scorn that would fall upon him should _he_ be seen too often with _her._  

Thus resolved, Will ate a quick lunch of cold ham and lukewarm tea, wrapped himself up in his coat, and rode Lecter's horse back up the five-mile track to Black Stag.   

The mist had not receded an inch; it hung thick and heavy over the hills and Lecter's woods.  Bare trees moaned in the wind.  A sense of foreboding stole over Will as he rode, and he could not shake it.  

Bill Edward Graham had instilled in his son a deep and almost fatalistic sensibility.  Will was a reasonable man, a rational one, even.  He knew his place and kept a good head about his shoulders in most matters; had he not been wounded at Basque Roads, he would have continued in his service to become a captain of his own vessel, like his father before him.  

But the nature of his peculiar ability gave Will an imagination so vivid and relentless it sometimes felt like Will carried another, separate being around in his skull.  HIs imagination lived and breathed.  And now it made the woods surrounding Black Stag Manor oppressive, malignant.  Shadowy figures flitted between the trees and the taste of blood crowded up on Will's tongue.   

Will could feel the presence of the Shrike.   

"Easy," he murmured to the horse.  "Easy, now."  

Black Stag reared up out of the mists and Will's imagined shadows stayed at bay.  He saw no more dead girls, no more monstrous beasts.  

A young groom dashed out to meet him, taking the horse by his bridle.  "The Master's been 'specting you, Mister.  Said to send you right in to see 'im."   

Nonplussed, Will bowed slightly to the boy and dismounted.  Lecter's imposing door stood before him.  Lecter had eschewed the traditional lion's head brass knocker in favor of a stag's bronze likeness.  Will knocked and the door was answered within a few moments by the very same butler who had welcomed Will to Black Stag the first time, who bowed and let Will inside.  

"Commander Graham," the butler said.  "Doctor Lecter will be with you momentarily.  Would you care for a cup of tea?" 

Will declined and the butler left him alone in Lecter's library.  When Will first came to Black Stag, he had not noticed how grand and wonderful Lecter's collection of books truly was; he had been thinking of other things, and had let his ill humor blind him.  At the ball he had not visited the library, only fled to the back of the house and suffered the crowds in the ballroom.   

Lecter had books in a dozen languages.  English and French, Spanish, Russian, a handful of languages with curling letters and blocky texts that Will did not know.  He ran his fingers across their spines.  The sensation of worn leather and gold leaf pleased him, and his imagination relaxed.  He could no longer feel the Shrike here, only Lecter.  

As if Will's thoughts summoned him, Lecter emerged, gliding through the door and greeting Will with a bow and a smile.  

"Graham," said he.  "I apologize for the wait.  I was attending to some business upstairs." 

"It is no problem," Will said, uncomfortable.  He added, "I brought back your horse."  

"Yes?  Did you find him acceptable?" 

"Uh, yes.  Yes, I did, thank you.  He was utterly unbothered by my hounds and more than content to travel." 

"I am glad," said Lecter.  "And how are you, Graham?  The last few days have been taxing enough on me; I cannot imagine how they must weigh on you."  

Will felt as though his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.   

"I am... I'm alright," he finally managed.  He was always poorly prepared for questions such as that.  Will was not alright by any normal man's standards, but by his own he was doing reasonably well, for all that the Shrike had taken up residence behind his teeth.  Will was aware of himself and his surroundings.  He was not missing hours or whole days.  Aside from his bout of sleepwalking in November, he was actually doing rather well.   

"Forgive my intrusion, but how are your nightmares?" 

Will felt his ears burn red.  _If only you knew, sir._ "They are... manageable.  Bound to get worse until we catch this Shrike, but they are my oldest friends.  I am well familiar with them.  I will manage, Doctor Lecter.  I always do."  

Lecter nodded, accepting, though his mouth was pinched unhappily.  After a moment he said, "How does your... ability work, if you do not mind me asking?"  Curiosity burned in Lecter's eyes; the intensity of his gaze made Will balk for a moment, before he steeled himself against it.   

He still could not slip into Lecter's skin.   

"Of course, if it pains you to discuss it, we shall speak of it no more," Lecter added quickly.  "You must forgive me, I do not wish to pry where I am unwelcome." 

"But you'll pry where you are welcome?"  Will said, dry.  

Lecter offered him a small smile.  "Absolutely.  Only to understand, of course, and to help you if I can.  If you allow me to." 

Again Will drew up short; he did not know what to say.  "Why?" 

"First," Lecter said, and expression was kind, almost soft.  Will could barely stand to meet his gaze.  "I am a doctor.  It is my sworn duty to help those whom my skills could benefit.  Second," and his voice, is possible, grew even softer.  Tenderness pushed up against Will's perception, a hound seeking scratches, and he could feel his resolve weaken.  "You are my friend--or at least I am yours--and I find the suffering of my friends untenable. 

"Third," and some good humor returned to Lecter's expression, "I admit that I am terribly curious about every thing and everyone.  It is my greatest fault, I think." 

"It--what I can do--it is not like anything I know how to explain," Will found himself saying, before he could convince himself to stop talking, to flee, to leave Black Stag and Lecter's tenderness before it led Will to making a mistake.  "It's."  He struggled.  He did not go to university--he was not a learned man.  Will knew himself to be a clever man, and cunning when cunning was demanded of him, but he has no proper schooling, only the barest essentials taught to him by his father and various sailors throughout his years.  

He did not know how to describe what he could do in terms that Lecter would understand.   

"Have you ever been to sea, Doctor Lecter?" 

"Not recently," Lecter replied.  "But I have crossed the Atlantic twice and the Channel numerous times." 

Will nodded, took a breath, and continued.  "When you are sailing on the open sea, you are at the mercy of many things.  The currents, the winds, the tolerance of your fellow sailors.  Most journeys pass in safety.  Sailors--particularly English ones--know what they're doing; they have to, otherwise they'll drown.  I am a good sailor, Doctor Lecter.  I am able to pass most people and avoid their thoughts, like a good captain can pass most dangerous berths and storms and maelstroms.  But sometimes," and Will stopped again.   

He could not believe that he was speaking about this.  This was his secret, his shame; he was standing in Lecter's library cutting his own skull open, and he did not know why.  

 _Affection,_ his traitorous mind whispered.  _Gratitude._  

"I am--blessed, we shall say, with a particularly vivid imagination," Will said.  "I always have been, ever since I was a small boy.  An imagination like a gale, like the westerly winds.  Sometimes, when I meet a person's eyes or concentrate on them, my imagination takes over me.  It blows me out of my own body and into theirs.  I can--feel them.  Be them.  It is like being caught in a hurricane.  Sinking in a maelstrom.  Wind and water all around.  The sails--" 

Will forced himself to stop again, keenly aware that he had once again tossed manners aside and revealed to much of himself.  He felt exposed.  Stripped.  

"But you always seem to find your way ashore again," said Lecter, and the tenderness, inexplicable, had not gone out of his face.  He laid his hand on Will's elbow carefully, offering solid ground.  Will is, perhaps as inexplicably, glad for it.  "The winds and waters of your perception do not drown you; they do not leave you wrecked and adrift at sea.  You survive them, and return to yourself." 

 _Not always._ That was a nightmare that Will would not--could not--divulge.  He was sure Lecter knew of it already.  He said only, "Perception, yes.  That is how I think of it."  He tried to smile.  "Most other men tell me that I am cursed, sir.  That I am a witch or a prophet."  He hesitated, but did not pull out of Lecter's grip, and he did not know why.   

 _Two months ago I thought I might kill you, Doctor Lecter,_ he did not say, and held the thought pressed against the back of his teeth.  _Last night, I dreamed of unspeakable things that passed between us._  

"Have you..." Will paused.  "Known anyone like me?  A London doctor, a police detective, surely you must have--" 

"I have not, Lecter said, wholly gentle.  "You are, as far as I know, utterly unique."  

Will closed his briefly and a sense of isolation yawned around him like empty miles of windless sea.   

"That does not mean that you are alone, Commander Graham," said Lecter.  His hand still rested on Will's elbow, burning, burning.   

Something long-buried arose in Will then, something he had never seen head on, only glimpsed, only dreaded.  He pulled his arm away.  

"Forgive me, Doctor Lecter," he said, choking on it, and fled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @panarcher.tumblr.com come bully me into finishing all my outstanding projects ay ay


	6. east sussex, 26 december 1816

learn and learn again

 

The next week passed in fits of misery and self-loathing.  Will saw no one but Sir Jack.  He took to spending his nights out in the woods surrounding Wolf Trap, hunting rabbits and a few undersized red deer.  Bev and Alana penned him anxious letters that Will read and then abandoned in his kitchen.  Lady Abigail had written him once more and her father, Lord Hobbs, had done the same, inviting him to a ball to celebrate the New Year.  Will had not responded to either of them.  Lecter did not try to reach out to Will at all.

Will was glad.  He was not himself.  The Shrike was with him always now, waking or sleeping, and Will was beginning to have difficulty sorting out where he ended and the Shrike began.  As the week wore on and the weather grew ever more inhospitable, Will began to see the Shrike walking beside him, eating in his kitchen, kneeling to examine his dogs. 

He was deathly afraid of opening his mouth and having the Shrike's words come out.

That must have been what had come over him at Black Stag Manor.  The Shrike was not as careful with his words as Will had been taught to be; he was not as guarded with his truest self, not as accustomed to scorn and derision.  Will's father had trained his son to keep his ability as secret as he could.  No one needed to know the mechanics of it or how heavily it taxed Will.  They would think him mad, or worse. 

But the Shrike was proud, arrogant even.  He had murdered nearly a dozen girls and walked away unscathed.  He thought himself invincible. 

And he longed to share himself with another.  Will knew this like he knew the taste of the sea; it had come to him not a full day ago, when he felled a red deer and held the beast's steaming heart in his hands.  The Shrike ached to be known. 

That was why Will had so carelessly shared the nature of his perception with Doctor Lecter; there could be no other explanation.  Between the gratitude he felt he owed Lecter and the Shrike's longing, he had been all but forced to reveal himself. 

And until this Shrike was caught, Will was determined not to make the same mistake.  So he shunned all but Sir Jack and his hounds, and spent his days wandering the woods and the hills.  He tried very hard not to think of Doctor Lecter. 

Will had known desire before, but only rarely, and not since before his injury at Basque Roads.  It did not bother him that at the moment, his desire took the form of a man.  Such things were not frowned upon here in the south country, and were common enough at sea.  Will had known plenty of men who had found pleasure, companionship, and even love in other men. 

What frightened him was the _uncertainty._ He did not know if he, Commander William Graham, desired Doctor Lecter, or if the Shrike did.  He could not tell.  Everything had become blurred and indistinct.  The Shrike walked with Will and shared in his dreams.  He polluted Will's thoughts and made food taste like ash in his mouth.  How could Will be sure that his desires were free of the Shrike's influence?

When Sir Jack caught this Shrike and Will could lay his perception to rest, perhaps he would—

_No,_ he thought angrily, turning aside.  He would not do anything.  Lecter had extended his friendship to Will, had offered him protection from mockery in society, and that was all.  Will would accept his friendship.  He would— grudgingly— accept his protection. 

He would not pursue his desire for Lecter.  It would almost surely fade, once Sir Jack caught the Shrike and Will pulled his mind from the Shrike's, and if it didn't, Will's behavior had been so abominably rude that Lecter's regard for Will would be forever colored. 

Will's mind knew this.  His heart, it seemed, was having a difficult time catching up.  At least he was not dreaming of Lecter anymore.  As the week passed and Christmas came and went, Will slept only three times, and each time fitfully.  His dreams were full of blood and longing.  He was hunting someone through the trees, and he ached for them, ached to kill them, to _consume_ them. 

But he did not ache for Lecter.

When he awoke from one of these dreams, he would be out in the fields or the woods, barefoot and shivering, his dogs whining all around. 

Will did not feel mad.  The distinction between himself and the Shrike was blurred, but it was there.  Will was not in danger of being swallowed up himself.  But he was nearly always plagued by discomfort, and he wished it would end. 

_We are nearing our quarry,_ Sir Jack had written in his last letter.  _We are driving the Shrike out from his hiding places._

Will was not sure he agreed with that assessment.  Sir Jack had certainly made it more difficult for the Shrike to find a young, dark-haired woman alone— there was a curfew on all of East Sussex, and women were forbidden from travelling alone after dark— but he had hardly discovered him. 

The closest they'd come, as far as Will knew, was the discovery of human hair stuffing a pillow in a shoemaker's house near Kent.  The shoemaker's wife had found it and called the constabulary, beside herself with terror, and the shoemaker had been arrested.  But the shoemaker was in his sixties and riddled with rheumatism, and Sir Jack and Will knew that the Shrike was an able, athletic man, one capable of great strength and precision.  The shoemaker's wife then remembered that one of her maids had bought the pillow in the market, and the investigation was sent back to its beginnings. 

Will was, in the dark and gloomy corner of his mind that had sprung into being sometime during his long convalescence after Basque Roads, not sure that they would ever catch the Shrike. 

The truth of it was that Sir Jack was no longer a young man and Will was no longer able to wield his perception without injury to himself.  They were fighting a monster at half-strength.  And the Shrike was— not clever, Will knew, but _cunning._ Wily, in the way a wolf was wily if he found himself backed into a corner and cut off from his prey. 

Will couldn't help but feel as though catching the Shrike would come at a terrible cost.

He had lost much already.  His father, his career in the Navy, his place in London.  He had given up even his sanity because Sir Jack bid him to, because he pushed his perception into another's skin too hard and too deeply.  He did not have much here, out in the Downs, but he had a home.  He had his dogs.  He even had friends, and he did not want to lose them. 

He did not want to give anything else up. 

Sighing, his head aching like he had been struck between the eyes, Will turned around and began the long walk home.  The deer he'd killed earlier that week had given him meat aplenty.  Today's hunt had been more about Will trying to outrun his shadow than an actual hunt. 

The dogs went cheerfully, snapping at each other and at the snow.  Will was growing very familiar with these woods.  He was not on his own land; he did not have all that much, and deer, smelling his hounds, moved through his own woods very sparingly. 

As far as he knew, these woods and hills belonged to no one man.  The acreage belonged nominally to the Crown, Will supposed, and the very fringes of the woods to Doctor Lecter, but everyone in Little Baltimore hunted in these parts. 

Wolf Trap rose out of the snow, looking somber and cold.  There was a horse tied up in front of the barn and a firelight glowing in Will's windows.  His heart sank, and he picked up his pace. 

"Sir Jack," he said, stepping inside the house.  He stamped his feet to rid them of snow.  The dogs he left outside. 

Sir Jack had settled himself in Will's kitchen with a fire and a cup of tea.  His shoulders were dusted with snow and he looked as tired as Will felt.  Grim, deep lines had taken up residence around his mouth and eyes. 

"Will," said he, heavily.  "Don't get comfortable, son.  We're leaving in a moment."

"Leaving?"  Will asked.  He had the most peculiar sense that somewhere, the Shrike was also sitting in his warm kitchen, drinking a cup of tea.  In Will's imagination, his fingertips were red.  "Why?"

"There's been another murder," Sir Jack said.  "And this time, he left us a body."

* * *

 Elise Nichols died in her bed.  Will knew this immediately upon entering the girl's bedroom.  She had been strangled to death, which was unusual for the Shrike.  Usually he preferred blades or bullets.  He was not an intimate killer; as much as he desired to be known, the Shrike feared intimacy.  He thought that it would cause him to lose control.

But this girl, the daughter of a wealthy local merchant, was well-behaved and obedient, according to her parents.  She had not tried get around Sir Jack's curfew. 

"She would never leave the house at night," Mrs. Nichols had sobbed.  Sir Jack was with both Nichols now.  He would calm them, and keep them out of Will's way.  At this moment Will did not need to be Will Graham, the recluse, the sympathetic; now he needed to be the Shrike. 

And so he was.  Will closed his eyes and let the wind take him out of his own body, place him in the Shrike's.  Time came undone.  The scene of the crime reformed itself. 

Elise Nichols was asleep in bed and he was hungry.  He was so, so hungry.   The knight on the hill had scared most of his usual prey into hiding, and if he didn't kill someone he'd kill Her, and he could not kill Her, he couldn't bear it, he needed Her. 

He knew that Samuel Nichols had a daughter who looked like Her.  He could almost see Her here, tucked into bed, sleeping peacefully.  He ached.  He needed to eat.

He crept forward, careful not to make a sound.  He disliked killing indoors.  There was no finesse to it, and doing so was risky.  If Elise had not been asleep, he would not have dared.  But desperation and hunger drove him forward, and he wrapped his hands around the girl's throat quickly, before she could wake and draw breath to scream.

She died quickly.  He was not a cruel man.  He did not care for his prey to suffer.  Elise died in his hands and he leaned forward, drew her sweet scent into his mouth—

He frowned.  Something was wrong.  He had not intended to do his butcher's work here, but if there was something wrong with the meat—

He cut into her quickly and efficiently, minimizing blood loss.  Her intestines were pink and healthy, but he cut a little deeper and revealed the black, tumorous mass of her liver and recoiled.  She was sick.  Her meat was poisoned.  He could not consume her.

And if he couldn't consume her— god.  If he couldn't consume her, he'd _murdered_ her.  There was no murder in hunting, not if every part of the prey was honored, was put to use, but he could not use a sick girl, he couldn't. 

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, touching Elise's blue lips.  Tears burned his eyes.  He felt monstrous. "I'm so sorry, child."  If he could, he would touch the girl and return her life0.  He was not a murderer— he didn't kill for sport— he wanted to honor her, and he couldn't—

He turned and fled.  He would have to find another girl, a healthy girl, so that he didn't hurt Her, and shame boiled in his belly. 

He was a monster. 

"Have you found anything?"  Sir Jack asked, and abruptly Will was back in his own skull, gasping for air.  He wiped his eyes quickly, before Sir Jack could see, and turned. 

"He's desperate," Will said.  His skin felt loose on his bones.  "He is feeling the effects of your curfew.  He is hungry and determined, and he feels cornered." 

"If he's so hungry, why did he leave this girl behind?"  Sir Jack pulled a hand down his face, frustrated.  "Was he disturbed?  Was he afraid of being caught?"

"There is something wrong with the girl's mea— with her body," Will said, catching himself.  He was not the Shrike; Elise Nichols was not just meat.  She was a person, and her life had been cut tragically short, and Will was not her murderer.  "She was ill, and the Shrike could not... honor her."

"Honor her?"  Sir Jack looked at Will, his face unreadable.  If Will tried he could push himself into Sir Jack's skin and think what he was thinking, but he was tired and he felt fragile, like he was made of china instead of flesh and bone. 

"That is what the Shrike thinks he is doing," Will said.  "He thinks that by eating them, or by stuffing their hair into pillows, or— whatever he does with their bodies, he is honoring them.  He doesn't think he's a murderer, sir."

Sir Jack shook his head, looking down at Elise. 

"He wishes," Will continued, unable to stop talking, driven to share himself— the Shrike—  "He wishes that he had not killed her.  He would see her alive again, if he could.  But he cannot, so he fled."

"Remorse does not bring this girl back from the dead," Sir Jack growled.

"No," Will agreed.  "It does not.  We have to be ready, sir.  He is desperate.  Do you remember what I told you, at Quantico?"

"You said that the Shrike killed these girls because there is one girl he can’t, or won’t," Sir Jack said.

"Exactly.  The Shrike is terrified of turning on her.  He can’t stop himself from killing, so he uses these girls as substitutes.  And we are preventing him from reaching a substitute."

"We are forcing his hand," Sir Jack said, grim understanding crossing his face.  "I see.  This is grave news, Will.  We have to tread carefully now.  It is good to know that we are causing difficulty for the Shrike, but a cornered animal is a vicious one."

"I know," Will said.  He knew better than most.  He sighed.  "What would you have me do?"

"Accompany me to Quantico," said Sir Jack.  "I have sent for Doctor Lecter as well.  We must catch this man, Will.  We _must._ I won't see him killing into the new year."

Will shied away at the thought of seeing Doctor Lecter again, but he knew better than to argue.  He nodded.  "Very well.  I'll meet you downstairs.  Do you want to talk to Elise's parents?"

"I do," said Sir Jack, and ushered Will out of the dead girl's bedroom. 

He took the servants' staircase back down to the front of the house, keen to avoid Elise's parents.  He did not know if he could look them in the eye, and what's more he didn't know if he could not do so because of his own sympathy, or because of the Shrike's guilt. 

He would not have killed Elise had he known about her illness.  He would have chosen another.  He would have—

_Stop,_ he told himself, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.  _You did not kill this girl.  It wasn't you._

Will clung to his control and forced his body to remember to whom it belonged.  He was not the Shrike.  He was not. 

While Sir Jack consoled Elise's parents, Will paced around their foyer.  His skin itched.  He longed for the sea.  He noticed, propped up against a rather dull vase, a stack of letters.  This morning's post, Will imagined, hastily abandoned when Elise's body was discovered. 

On the top of the stack, penned in thick, dark ink and sealed with black wax stamped with a stag's head, was a letter from _Lord GJ Hobbs,_ and something deep within Will's perception said, _oh._

* * *

 Quantico was warmer than Wolf Trap, and Lecter was waiting for them when they arrived.  He nodded to Sir Jack and smiled at Will, who reddened and barely managed to smile back. 

_He does not bear me any ill will,_ Will thought, amazed.  He still could not slip into Lecter's skin, but Lecter was open enough that Will could read his intentions.  He was not angry with Will for abandoning decorum and fleeing from his home.  He did not think Will strange, or cursed, or repulsive.  He was curious, and a touch worried, but he was not angry. 

"Are you well, Graham?"  Lecter asked, noticing Will's color.  "You look feverish."

"It is only the cold, sir," Will managed.  "I am alright.  And yourself?"

Lecter shook his head.  "Eager to find this Shrike," he said.  "I have barely slept at all since Cassie Boyle was murdered."

"Neither have I," Will admitted. 

"We will sleep when our man is caught," Sir Jack said, interrupting any moment of intimacy Will and Lecter might have shared.  Lecter looked at Will wryly, and Will found himself smiling back.

_You're a fool,_ he told himself.  _You're a fool, you're a fool._ But he was no longer as concerned that his desire for Lecter had sprung up from any of the Shrike's desires.  All the Shrike wanted to do was consume.  Will did not want to devour Doctor Lecter; he did not want to own him.  He sought his companionship, his kindness.  The Shrike wanted blood and pain.  Will only wanted friendship. 

He would just have to guard his tongue more closely in the future.  The Shrike also wanted Her, whoever She was, to know him.  His want made Will freer with his own thoughts than he would be normally.  Now that he knew, he could be careful and curb his tongue. 

An idea was born in the Nichols' home, and it had solidified in Will's mind as he and Sir Jack rode to Quantico. 

He did not want to voice it.  He almost did not dare.  Where he came from there were consequences for speaking ill of powerful men, and he could not think of a man more powerful in southern England than Lord Garrett Jacob Hobbs, Earl of Kent. 

Will gathered his courage, took a deep breath, and said, "Have you noticed, Sir Jack, that all of the girls who were murdered bear more than a passing resemblance to Lady Abigail Hobbs?" 

Sir Jack stilled.  Lecter's eyebrows shot up. 

"You cannot be serious," Sir Jack said flatly.

"I assure you that I am," Will shot back.  "Think, sir.  Lady Abigail is of the appropriate age.  She has dark hair and pale skin.  She is not unlovely, but she is no great beauty either.  Elise Nichols could have been her twin."

"You are not accusing the Earl of Kent of murder," Sir Jack hissed. 

"I invited Lord Hobbs to my ball," Lecter said slowly, looking at Will.  His eyes were unreadable again, his expression solemn.  "He assured me that he would attend, and then at the last moment sent me a letter claiming to be ill." 

"Why would Lord Hobbs chose Elise Nichols?  He lives in Kent.  The Nichols live in East Sussex.  And they are, no offense meant, not of Lord Hobbs' social standing.  How would he even know them?"  Sir Jack asked, frowning.  He did not look convinced, but he did not look completely unopposed to the idea either. 

Will knew he had precious little time; Sir Jack tended to make decisions very quickly, and once a decision had been made he was at loath to reverse it. 

"I saw a letter addressed to Mister Nichols, from Lord Hobbs," Will said quickly.  "Nichols is a wealthy merchant— it is more than possible that Lord Hobbs has done business with him in the past."

"What about the other girls?"  Sir Jack counters.  "All servants, maids and barkeeps, and none of them were employed by Lord Hobbs."

"Balls," Will said.  "Dinner parties.  Business ventures.  There are innumerable reasons for Lord Hobbs to visit another's home.  Servants are told to be invisible, Sir Jack, but they are easy enough to see for someone who is looking to kill." 

"Lord Hobbs is also renowned for his hunting," Lecter added.  His expression did not change, but Will was grateful for his support.  "I hesitate to believe him capable of murder, but..."

"It could also be someone in Lord Hobbs' household," Will said.  "A butler or a valet.  Someone who sees Lady Abigail every day, but knows what would befall him should he try and touch her.  Servants in one area tend to all know each other, sir.  It would not be difficult for such a man to find girls who looked like Lady Abigail, and take from them what he cannot take from her."

Sir Jack was nodding now.  Will knew that he did not believe that Lord Hobbs was the Shrike.  Will did not know if he believed it either.  But his instincts were ringing like a struck bell.  Lord Hobbs had written Nichols a letter the day his daughter died, and Elise and Cassie both had looked alarmingly like Lady Abigail.  Will had noticed it weeks ago, but had thought nothing of it. 

"I hired Cassie Boyle on the recommendation of Lady Hobbs," Lecter said suddenly, as if he had just remembered.  "I met them in town in November and mentioned that I planned to throw a ball, but did not have the staff to do so.  Lady Hobbs recommended Cassie Boyle to me, among others." 

A shiver passed down Will's spine. The pieces were falling into place.  Someone in Lord Hobbs' household, either a servant or the master himself, was a murderer. 

"Lady Abigail is in danger," Will said, alarmed.  "We must write to her at once, we must get her out of harm's way."

"We cannot go charging into Lord Hobbs' home," Sir Jack said.  "Not yet," he added, at Will's hot glare.  "We have some troubling circumstances, I will admit.  Some coincidences.  But we have no _proof_ that Lord Hobbs, nor anyone in his household, is the Shrike, and accusing him of such would be ruinous.  We must first gather evidence.  Then we strike."

"But Lady Abigail— "

"Has been unharmed this whole time," Sir Jack said firmly.  "I am sure she will be fine for a little longer still.  We cannot move too quickly and accuse the wrong man, Will.  We cannot spook the Shrike.  We have to catch him."

"I agree," said Lecter firmly.  "However, I am also uncomfortable leaving Lady Abigail unprotected.  Her father is throwing a ball at the end of the week, to celebrate the New Year.  I have been invited to attend."

"As have I," said Sir Jack.

"And I," Will mumbled. 

"Then we shall attend, and keep a vigorous eye out for any sign of villainy," Lecter proposed.  "In the meantime, Graham, where are Missus Bloom and Miss Katz staying?"

"Alana and Bev?"  Will asked, startled into familiarity.  "Um, in Little Baltimore, I believe.  Alana— Missus Bloom— lets a house there.  Neither wanted to be alone in their estates due to... current circumstances."

"That is perfectly understandable.  Do you think they have room for one more?"

Will blinked at him, not understanding.  Lecter looked at him patiently.  "Oh!" said Will.  "Yes, I believe so."

"Good," said Lecter.  "I will write— or perhaps you should?— and implore the ladies to invite Lady Abigail to stay with them until her father's ball.  She is a lonely girl; her mother will not object to surrendering her daughter to the company of other ladies."

Sir Jack was nodding.  "I will make some inquiries," he said.  "It should not be difficult to trace any of the murdered girls' movements; if any of them had contact with Lord Hobbs' household, I will find out about it."

"I'll write to Alana," Will said.  They would take Abigail in; Will knew they would. 

"And I," said Lecter, smiling at Will, "am needed in London for several days.  Some urgent business has come up.  While I'm there, I will ask around town and see if anyone has heard any unusual stories about Lord Hobbs.  Graham?"

"Lecter," Will said, and was surprised to see something that looked like affection in Lecter's dark eyes.  He flushed again. 

"I will see you at the ball," he said, and bowed. 

"As will I," Will mumbled, bowing also, and Lecter departed. 

Sir Jack watched him go keenly, then looked Will up and down.  "Well," he said, "I don't disapprove."

* * *

 The new year came quickly.  Will stayed in Wolf Trap for most of the week leading up to the ball, pacing and fretting and thinking.  Alana had agreed to his proposal and taken Lady Abigail in with good cheer.  Sir Jack was busy with his inquiries and Lecter remained in town.  Will had only his dogs and the Shrike's shadow. 

The Shrike was growing desperate.  Will could feel it like an ill wind on the tip of his tongue.  Will ate his meals at the same time as the Shrike took his.  He went out and walked in the fields when the Shrike, restless, did the same.  He could feel the other man moving throughout the world, wherever he was, a simmering, relentless hunger building within him, and prayed that they would not be too late. 

But the Shrike, perhaps still guilty over the death of Elise Nichols, or perhaps too cautious, did not strike again before New Year's Eve dawned over southern England.   

Will spent most of the day a mess of nerves, too anxious to rest, too buried in the Shrike to even consider hunting.  At five he donned his uniform again, trimmed his beard, and tried fruitlessly to tame his hair.  When he heard horses in his yard an hour earlier than he expected them, he went out, ready to meet Sir Jack, and found that it was not Sir Jack waiting for him with a carriage, but rather Doctor Lecter with a horse.

Lecter smiled.  "There has been a change of plans," he said.  "And we must make haste.  Are you opposed to riding hard?"

"No," said Will, both confused and strangely relieved.  "I do not."  Lecter had brought him the very same horse he had borrowed the night Cassie Boyle had died.  The beast snorted, recognizing Will, and allowed him to mount without difficulty. 

Lecter himself sat astride a great black racer with all the easy of a country gentleman.  They set off into the growing dark together at a vigorous pace, and despite their speed Will found that he was more at ease than he had been in days. Something about Lecter had the singular effect of banishing Will's shadows.  The Shrike was not with him. 

"Sir Jack and I have been looking in to Lord Hobbs," Lecter called, over the wind and the sound of hoof beats.  "I do not know all of what Sir Jack has found, but in London I came across a maid who had a very interesting story to tell."

"Oh?"  said Will. 

"She was reluctant to talk, but after some coaxing she told me that she had once been in Lord Hobbs' London household," Lecter continued. 

Will cut him a sharp look.  This was probably not a conversation to be had on horseback where half the countryside could hear, but Will nodded anyway, urging his companion to continue. 

"She claims that Lord Hobbs once attacked her," Lecter said.  "Quite savagely, too.  Lady Abigail heard her cries for help and came to her aid.  This maid was then given a tidy sum, sworn to secrecy upon the pain of death, and dismissed from the household."

Will thought about that for a moment.  He believed this maid, even though he had never met her, but he knew that very few others would.  Lord Hobbs was an Earl; his family had been wealthy and powerful for generations.  The wealthy and powerful almost always found their way out of trouble.  Even when they had committed so grievous a sin as murder, few were imprisoned. 

And this girl was a servant.  Servants usually told policemen— or, in this case, doctors— the truth, because they knew that the consequence of lying would fall heavily on them.  They had no money to bribe a judge for a merciful sentence or a prison warden for gentle treatment. 

But few would believe her. 

"I think you have found our Shrike," Lecter said, very seriously. 

Will blinked, startled.  "You think Lord Hobbs is the Shrike?"

"I do," said Lecter.  "This maid was nearly a mirror image of Lady Abigail, Graham.  If I did not know Lady Hobbs' fearsome reputation, I would have thought her Lady Abigail's natural sister."

Will fought down the urge to shiver.  "How long ago was this maid in Lord Hobbs' service?" he asked. 

"She was dismissed a year and a half ago."

"That is before the Shrike started his killing," Will said. 

"Only a month before Lord Hobbs took up a more permanent residence in his home in Kent," Lecter countered.  "You said yourself, Graham, that the Shrike fixated so on his victims because they were reflections of his true obsession, whom he could not touch.  Would not a father want to spare his daughter?  Even a father whose appetites were monstrous?  Lord Hobbs cherishes Lady Abigail.  She is his only child.  He once had a son, but the boy was sickly and died as an infant." 

Will was silent, thinking.  He knew that somewhere behind them in the dark they had passed from East Sussex into Kent.  They were not far from the Earl's manor now. 

He had reached many of these conclusions on his own.  The Shrike was a creature of desperate hungry, but also of desperate tenderness.  He believed that he honored his victims.  He did not want to cause them any unnecessary pain.

(Except for Cassie Boyle; she was an anomaly.  She stood out among the rest of the Shrike's victims.  Will did not know what to make of her particularly ignoble death.)  

Finally, he said, "I take it this is the change of plans?  At our pace we'll make Lord Hobbs' home long before the ball is set to begin."

"Yes," said Lecter.

"What are we going to do?"  Will said. 

Lecter sighed, loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the Downs.  "Sir Jack is bringing the constabulary.  He is going to arrest Lord Hobbs as discreetly as possible before the ball begins.  You and I have been tasked with arriving early and keeping Lord Hobbs distracted, so that he does not sense the noose about his neck and flee."

Will cursed internally.  This is not what he had intended, when he agreed to help Sir Jack catch the Shrike."

"We should see no violence," Lecter assured him, once again guessing Will's thoughts with alarming accuracy.  "Sir Jack is not far behind us.  All will be well, Graham."

The shadows stayed well away, hidden among the dark hills, but a sense of foreboding chilled Will anyway.  Catching monsters was never so easy.  But it was too late now; Will could see the rise of a great house settled on top of a broad, flat hill, lit up by blazing bonfires and dancing torches. 

They were very near the Shrike, now. 

"Breathe deeply," Lecter instructed, kindly.  "And allow me to do most of the talking, I think.  Perhaps you should have Lady Hobbs give you a tour of the house?  She seemed fond of you, and no wife needs to see her husband dragged away."

Will nodded, feeling a stab of pity for both Lady Hobbs and Abigail.  He knew nothing about Lady Hobbs' social standing outside of her marriage to her husband, but life was about to become very different for both women.  Lord Hobbs, as a murderer, could lose his estate and his fortune to the Crown.  He had no male heir to inherit his lands, and Lady Abigail was unmarried. 

Will hoped, for her sake, that there was an honorable young man who would step in to save her from destitution.  He was grateful that at least she was with Alana and Bev, and wouldn't see her father's arrest.

He and Lecter rode on, anxiety brewing beneath Will's hands.  He tasted blood and felt death brush against his sides.  They arrived a good hour before the ball was due to begin, long before even the most desperate of fortune-hunters and bootlickers would arrive to simper at Lord Hobbs. 

The Hobbs house was a grand one, almost threatening; it had none of the elegance of Black Stag or the quiet solidity of Quantico, instead looming over the countryside like a hungry black beast.  Two roaring bonfires blazed on either side of the front door like eyes.  A groom took both of their horses, and Lecter brushed his hand against the small of Will's back briefly, unseen by anyone else in the darkness. 

"It will be alright," he repeated, firelight reflected in his face.  "Though you might need this, just as a precaution."  He pressed a pistol into Will's hands.  Will couldn't see it in the dark, but he felt the weight of it, the heft, and swallowed. 

"It is loaded," Lecter said.  "Be careful."

Will half wanted to lean into his hand and half wanted to flee back down the hill.  He still did not understand Lecter's easy affection, his steadfastness, but he was deeply grateful.  Perhaps, once this was all over, Will could deepen their friendship.  He would like that very much, he thought. 

But for now he steeled himself, hid the pistol in his thick coat and imagined that he was the iron braces of a ship, the sleek wood, the cutting prow, and nodded. 

Doctor Lecter knocked on the door, and they were ushered into the house. 

Will's first impression was that of entering a hunter's cabin.  Stags and all manner of beasts adorned the walls, their antlers polished, their eyes glassy.  Will saw bears, wolves, great African lions and American elk, the tusks of elephants and the teeth of tigers. 

"Lord Hobbs," Lecter said jovially, striding from Will's side.  "Your collection had grown, I see."

"It has," a pale, sallow man said, inclining his head in greeting.  Lord Hobbs was not a particularly large man; he was Will's height, not as broad in the shoulder as Hannibal or as deep in the chest as Will, and he bore little resemblance to his daughter, but for his eyes.  He was balding and thin-faced, his lips pale and his chin weak.  His eyes, though, blazed. 

Recognition tore through Will, set every nerve ablaze.  He knew this man.  They took their meals at the same time and gazed up at the same sky together.  Lord Hobbs was the Shrike. 

"Commander Graham, I imagine," Lord Hobbs said.   His voice too was thin, almost light.  He did not strike Will as a murderer and a cannibal, but he was. 

"Uh, yes," Will said, and tore his eyes away.  He bowed, and didn't have to hide his flush. 

"Commander Graham and I seem to have misjudged the time of your ball," Lecter said.  "My apologies, Lord Hobbs."

Hobbs waved a hand.  He had strangled Elise Nichols to death with that hand.  He had put a knife through Cassie Boyle's chest. 

He had loved Lady Abigail, held her as a babe, soothed her forehead when she was ill.  Vertigo made Will feel as though he was stepping out of his body.  Sympathy burned in his mouth.  He anchored himself in his own bones firmly, clinging onto himself. 

"It is no matter," Lord Hobbs said.   "I am glad to see you, Doctor.  It's been too long.  And I understand Commander Graham is a particular favorite of my daughter's."

Will flushed again, and did not miss the subtle bite in Hobbs' tone.  He was terrified of losing his daughter, Will realized.  The insight came upon him suddenly and without prompting.  It ached behind his temples.  Hobbs loved Lady Abigail.  He had refused all who sought her hand.  He needed her with him, his precious girl, and others kept coming to steal her away. 

"Is that Commander Graham?"  Lady Abigail called from the room her father had emerged from, and appeared in the doorway.  She was a vision in dark blue silk, her hair tied up and threaded with sapphires.  Will's heart sank into his belly.  She grinned when she saw him, and curtseyed prettily. 

"Lady Abigail," Will said, and bobbed his head hastily.  "I thought— "

He was aware of how rude and uncouth he must look to Lord Hobbs, but Lord Hobbs ate human flesh.  His opinion mattered very little, in the grand scheme of things. 

"Alana and Bev brought me back this afternoon," Lady Abigail said, speaking of the two women like she'd known them all her life.  "They are upstairs getting ready.  How was your journey, sirs?  Safe, I presume?"

"Quite," said Lecter, smiling at the girl.  He and Will traded glances; she was not supposed to be here.  Sir Jack was on his way to arrest her father.  She didn't need to see.  "And how was your stay in Little Baltimore?"

"Oh, it's a lovely town," Lady Abigail said cheerfully.  "I prefer the woods myself— a trait I inherited from my father, I think— but it was wonderful to spend time with Alana and Bev, and to see the village." 

_We need to get her away from here,_ Will thought, panic rising inside him.  Lady Abigail was to be protected.  She was precious. 

Will knew that the Shrike was still within him as he strode forward, bent to take Lady Abigail's hand and brush his lips across her knuckles.  He was well outside of the bounds of propriety.  But the Shrike wanted this girl safe, and it was a desire Will shared; he would use the Shrike's boldness, his protectiveness, to his advantage. 

He had the distinct sense that Sir Jack's arrest would not go as cleanly as he wanted it to. 

"Come," Lady Abigail said, delighted by Will's attention.  "Allow me to show you the house, before it grows too crowded."

"I would be honored," Will said, and let Lady Abigail take his elbow as she had done at Lecter's ball weeks ago.  Lord Hobbs' expression was flat, but Will could feel murder moving behind his eyes.  He almost smiled at him, echoing his toothsome grin, but restrained himself.

"This is my father's library," Lady Abigail said, gesturing to the room she'd just left.  "We have one of the largest collections in the county, I'm told."

Will let her guide him around, keeping one eye on Lady Abigail and one on her father.  Lecter, bless him, had successfully ensnared Lord Hobbs in what appeared to be a very intimate discussion about a mounted bear's head.  Lord Hobbs was nodding and moving his hands as though he was recounting a hunting tale. 

 The Shrike inside of Will twisted anxiously. 

"Abigail, my dear," Lord Hobbs called, while Lady Abigail was showing Will a rather nice collection of naturalist guides.  "Come along for a moment, would you?  Your mother needs us in the kitchen." 

"Of course, father."  Lady Abigail smiled apologetically at Will and went to join her father, following him to the back of the house. 

"Does he suspect?"  Will asked Lecter lowly.  His nerves were raw and exposed; he felt as though he might burst into flames, or fly into the sky, at the slightest provocation. 

"I don't think so," Lecter said.  "He was quite interested in telling me how he conquered the bear.  He can't know.  I— "

Two things happened at precisely the same time.  The first was that Will happened to look past his friend out the window into the dark hills, and pick out a line of torches blazing, reflecting off bayonets and shined brass buckles. 

The second was a high, frantic scream from the direction Lord Hobbs took his daughter, and Will bolted. 

"Sir Jack is bringing a regiment!"  Will howled over his shoulder, overcome with panic.  His own fear mixed with the Shrike's and tore through him.  He heard dimly Lecter should a foreign curse, felt him running behind Will, and saw Lady Hobbs, her throat scarlet, stumble out of the kitchen and collapse, choking. 

Maids and manservants screamed and rushed to her aid.  Will did not need to be cursed to know that there was naught to be done for her; he felt Lady Hobbs choke and gasp, felt her terror, her confusion, and felt her die.

"Garrett Jacob Hobbs!"  he shouted, half-wild, and burst into the kitchen. 

Lord Hobbs stood with his daughter caught in his arms, a sharp blade held to her neck. His eyes were fierce and hungry. 

_If I cannot have her at my side,_ the Shrike hissed between Will's ears, _I shall have her in my belly, where she will be with me always._

"Drop the knife!"  Will bellowed.  Lady Abigail's eyes met his, wide and staring.  Ferociousness rose up in Will's gut, howling, screaming, and when Hobbs made to draw his blade across his daughter's throat Will moved on instinct and shot him through the neck. 

Hobbs stumbled and fell.  Lady Abigail pressed her hands to her throat, a tiny gasp falling from her lips, and fell too.  Red spilled between her fingers. 

Will abandoned the pistol and dropped to his knees beside Abigail, pressing his bigger hand to her wound, trying to keep her blood inside her body.  Abigail did not scream.  She did not cry. 

"See?"  Lord Hobbs choked, hands twitching.  Somewhere in the house women were screaming.  Sir Jack was bellowing orders.  Boots were thundering on stone.  _He brought a regiment to arrest the Shrike._ "See?"

"Move," Lecter said, pulling Will's hands aside.  He murmured to Abigail in a language Will didn't understand.  Will rocked back on the balls of his feet, his hands red, and when he looked at Hobbs again he had grown antlers, bloody and sharp.

"See?" said Lord Hobbs, and died.

And Will saw. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @panarcher.tumblr.com come holla

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over [here](http://alanaism.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you wanna come say hi or s/t!!


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